They who make goodness and charity a public profession, depending for their election upon a well-mannered embrace of these things and the power to move them not from within themselves or by their own sacrifices but, by compulsion, from others. They who, knowing very little or next to nothing, take pride in eagerly telling everyone else what to do. They who believe absolutely in their recitation of pieties not because they believe in the pieties but because they believe in themselves. More than a pity, more than a shame, such a thing is despicable. And yet, this parlous condition, this agony of weak men, this betrayal and this disgusting show, are not the end of things.
Principles are eternal.
They stem not from our resolution or lack of it but from elsewhere, where in patient and infinite ranks they simply wait to be called. They can be read in history. They arise as if of their own accord when in the face of danger natural courage comes into play and honor and defiance are born. Things such as courage and honor are the mortal equivalent of certain laws written throughout the universe. The rules of symmetry and proportion, the laws of physics, the perfection of mathematics, even the principle of uncertainty, are encouragement, entirely independent of the vagaries of human will, that not only natural law but our own best aspirations have a life of their own.