Quote of the day

"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." - Thomas Paine, "Dissertation on the First Principles of Government" (1795)

Two hundred and thirty years later and this admonition is as relevant as ever. 

Quote of the day

"[O]ne of the grievous charges brought against George III. was, that he had made laws for sending men beyond seas for trial. That was one of the most odious of those acts of tyranny which occasioned the American revolution. The whole of the reasoning is not applicable to this case, but I submit to your Honors that, if the President has the power to do it in the case of Africans, and send them beyond seas for trial, he could do it by the same authority in the case of American citizens. By a simple order to the marshal of the district, he could just as well seize forty citizens of the United States, on the demand of a foreign minister, and send them beyond seas for trial before a foreign court." - John Quincy Adams, "United States v. The Amistad" (1841)*

What we currently have is a mad emperor claiming the authority to place non citizens beyond seas for life imprisonment without even a trial who has already expressed his desire to do the same to citizens. As Adams noted in his successful argument before the Supreme Court, King George III was considered a tyrant for doing less.

*Quote via the April 20, 2025 Digby front page.

Literary quote of the day

 "Every day and every hour, every minute, walk around yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with angry heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don't know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labor. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but forever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Quote of the day

 "Vitellius, the Roman emperor, dined on the brains of thousands of peacocks and the tongues of thousands of flamingos. Today we regard that as evidence of moral depravity. We could say the same about those who own ... megayachts." - Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save

Quote of the day

 "When life is going well, instead of feeling gratitude, we convince ourselves that we're the all-powerful ones making it happen (these are the Ayn Rand types.) - Tim Desmond,  How to Stay Human in a F*cked-Up World: Mindfulness Practices for Real Life

Quote of the day

 "For the moment, all that we can do is to dig in our heels, and prevent silliness from sliding into insanity." - E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy

Quote of the day

 "If we consider the assault on democracy an insignificant crime, we have all yet to master our past." - Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy

Quote of the day

 "It is impossible that there can be genuine and lasting peace through fear. Through fear can come only hatred, illwill and hostility, suppressed perhaps for the time being only, but ready to erupt and become violent any moment. True and genuine peace can prevail only in an atmosphere of mett, amity, free from fear, suspicion and danger." - Walpole Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

Quotes of the day

 From Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg

• "Fascism didn't appear to be ending anytime soon. Indeed, it appeared to be here to stay indefinitely."
• "Soon no one was left who could pretend it wasn't happening, who could close their eyes, plug their ears, and hide their head under a pillow: those people were all gone."

Quote of the day

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection." - Thomas Paine, "The American Crisis" (December 23, 1776)

Quote of the day

 "What is terrible is easy to endure." - Philodemus

Via Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers by Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz