17) "Contrary to the media circus which portrayed politicians as all-powerful figures, Kentbridge knew from experience the vast majority of US Government officials – elected or otherwise – were puppets who only had the illusion of power.","James M
18) "One Saturday morning last May, I joined the presidential mot
orcade as it slipped out of the southern gate of the White House. A mostly white crowd had assembled. As the mot
orcade drove by, people cheered, held up their smartphones to record the procession, and waved American flags. To be within feet of the president seemed like the thrill of their lives. I was astounded. An old euphoria, which I could not immediately place, gathered up in me. And then I remembered, it was what I felt through much of 2008, as I watched Barack Obama’s star shoot across the political sky. I had never seen so many white people cheer on a black man who was neither an athlete nor an entertainer. And it seemed that they loved him for this, and I thought in those days, which now feel so long ago, that they might then love me, too, and love my wife, and love my child, and love us all in the manner that the God they so fervently cited had commanded.",Ta-Nehisi Coates
19) "But it may be that I betrayed myself. Since D
orcastle, my ability to supress my emotions has diminished. I know feelings are showing, not in ways which commons might see, but clearly enough for Mages to spot. My elders could well have decided that I am ruined, that my contact with you has corrupted me beyond correction."" ...""What does it take to corrupt a Mage, anyway?""""I told you. They thought that you had attempted to seduce me. Perhaps they thought that you had already succeeded despite my denials that such a thing had happened.""Once again Mari stared at him, her face darkening. ""I was under the impression that your elders thought I would try that at some future point. What did you tell them to make them think that I had already put my moves on you? Or that I had already hooked you?""""Hooked?"" Alain asked. ""Ensnared."" Mari got the word out between clenched teeth. ""I told them nothing. That is the illusion they wished to believe, not thinking there could be any other reason for a female Mechanic to seek my company."" Alain paused in thought. ""A young and attractive female Mechanic, that is.""""Oh right. The one with all those physical charms.""""Yes,"" Alain agreed. She gasped a laugh. ""I was being sarcastic again, Alain. I hope that isn't the only reason you've been attracted to me. Not the only reason anyway.""""You are very pleasant to look upon,"" Alain said, and Mari's face flushed again. Had he angered her? ""But my elders were foolish to think physical desire alone could corrupt me. It should not be possible with all of my training, but I found that a single shadow was by far the most important part of the world illusion. That is what doomed me, so my elders were correct in thinking that you had altered my thinking. Not with your body or other physical temptation, but with who you were and the things you did."" Alain made another effort to bend his lips into a smile. ""I will never be able to return to what I was before I met you.","Jack Campbell, The Hidden Masters of Marandur"
20) "Even at the very dawn of Christianity, there was a commonly-accepted theory known as the Blood Libel, which stated matter-of-factly that Jewish people regularly sacrificed non-Jewish babies and used the blood of those babies in Judaic rituals. Later, in medieval times, plagues and other diseases were commonly blamed on Jews, resulting in the enforcement of Apartheid-like conditions, separating Jewish communities from the rest of the population throughout Europe. For example, in the Papal States – territories in the Italian Peninsula that existed throughout the middle ages and medieval times that were governed directly by the Pope – Jews were only allowed to reside in neighborhoods called ghettos. They were regularly forced to convert to Christianity in various barbaric ways such as involuntary baptisms. The stealing of Jewish babies from their parents by Church officials was also not uncommon and the children would often then be brought up as Catholic orphans never knowing of their Jewish heritage.","James M
orcan, Debunking Holocaust Denial Theories"
21) "The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.",Federico García Lorca