Harnesses Capitalism's Productive Capacity and Constrains Its Destabilizing Impulses

"Still, the global financial crisis was a lesson that less intervention is not always the best intervention.
Markets are a powerful tool for allocating scarce resources, linking capital and customers, and producing huge sums of material wealth.
But frameworks matter. It is up to government to establish an institutional framework that harnesses capitalism's productive capacity and constrains its destabilizing impulses.
It is also up to government to ensure the system serves broad public interest and not just those of big Market players. This means developing an agenda focused on getting good outcomes for working and middle-class people, not on fulfilling intellectual abstractions."

-Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now. 

The Opiate Of Intellectuals

"Clinton even used the 1996 State of the Union to proclaim that "the era of big government is over." 

It is worth mentioning that one important element of society never fully embraced the new economic consensus. Much of the western academia remain fixated on communism. Indeed, as the Berlin Wall fell, it became evident that Communists True Believers persisted only on its western side. In the educational establishment, Marxism lingered as the opiate of the intellectuals."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now. 

No Stopping Place In Life?

"There is no stopping place in this - life no, nor was there ever one, no matter how far along the way a person had gone."

- Johannes Eckhart

Chivalry Of A Bygone Era?

"Early on he (Moltke) tried to convince the Nazis to abide by the Geneva Convention, but Keitel dismissed it as a “notion of chivalry of a bygone era.""

(Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke, legendary military genius and Christian who plotted with Bonhoeffer for Hitler's Assination)

- Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.

Let Your Conscience Drive

"To his sons, he (Moltke) wrote that he had tried to help the victims of the Nazis and to try to prepare the way for a change to new leadership: “In that my conscience drove me . . . and in the end that is a man’s duty.”

(Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke, legendary military genius and Christian who plotted with Bonhoeffer for Hitler's Assination)

- Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

Habituated To Murder

Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke, was the legendary military genius....

......Moltke was a committed Christian. Canaris drafted him into the conspiracy (to assinate Hitler)at the outset of the Polish campaign when he documented many human rights abuses. In October 1941 he wrote, “Certainly more than a thousand people are murdered in this way every day, and another thousand German men are habituated to murder. . . . What shall I say when I am asked: And what did you do during that time?” In another letter he wrote, “Since Saturday the Berlin Jews are being rounded up. Then they are sent off with what they can carry. . . . How can anyone know these things and walk around free?”"

- Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

When Preachers Prepare To Murder

"When Bonhoeffer returned from Switzerland in late September, he learned of more horrors. But these were being perpetrated inside Germany. A new decree required all Jews in Germany to wear a yellow star in public. Things had now moved into a new realm, and Bonhoeffer knew it was but a foretaste of things to come. At the Dohnanyis’ house that September, Bonhoeffer famously said that, if necessary, he would be willing to kill Hitler. It would not come to that, but Bonhoeffer had to be clear that he was not assisting in the fulfillment of a deed he was unwilling to do. He stipulated, however, that he would first have to resign from the Confessing Church. Bonhoeffer knew that most of its members would not share his position on this matter, but more important, he did not want to implicate them in something that he was undertaking alone. His role in the conspiracy was between him and God alone; that much he knew. And he knew that being chosen by God..."
- Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

Stand Strong

"The only thing that matters is the silent endurance of a few..."

- Julius Evola. Revolt Against The Modern World. (Italian Philosopher)

In What Name

"...since only then will it become clear what one is reacting against, but also and foremost, in what name."

- Julius Evola. Revolt Against The Modern World 

People Don't Know Their Wants?

"For quite some time now it has become almost commonplace to talk about the “decline of the West” and the crisis of contemporary civilization, its dangers, and the havoc it has caused. Also, new prophecies concerning Europe’s or the world’s future are being formulated, and various appeals to “defend” the West are made from various quarters.

In all this concern there is generally very little that goes beyond the amateurishness of intellectuals. It would be all too easy to show how often these views lack true principles, and how what is being rejected is often still unconsciously retained by those who wish to react, and how for the most part people do not really know what they want, since they obey irrational impulses. This is especially true on the practical plane where we find violent and chaotic expressions typical of a “protest” that wishes to be global, though it is inspired only by the contingent and terminal forms of the latest civilization."

- Julius Evola. Revolt Against The Modern World. (Italian Philosopher)

Too Bad For Mussolini

First creating the periodical La Torre,  which after ten issues had to be put on the shelf. By order of Mussolini no print shop was allowed to print it any longer. Evola's criticism therein had been belligerent. After being reminded that Mussolini thought otherwise about something he wrote, "Tano peggio per Mussolini" (Too bad for Mussolini). At that time, therefore, in spite of his sympathies for fascism, he was obliged to move about Rome with bodyguards."

(H.T. Hasen's introduction to Evola in the following book)

- Julius Evola. Revolt Against The Modern World 

Orgy Of Executions

"As a result of such things, many more in the army leadership were driven to the conspiracy. At one point officers came to Field Marshal Bock and begged him with tears in their eyes to stop “the orgy of executions” in Borisov. But even Bock was powerless. When he demanded that the SS commander in charge of the massacres be brought to him, the civilian commissioner, Wilhelm Kube, laughed defiantly. Hitler had given the SS free rein, and even a field marshal could do nothing about it. "

It was during this time that Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg and his cousin von Stauffenberg overcame their fundamental feelings against conspiracy. Both were devoutly Christian and had been raised in the caste of German military aristocracy. What they witnessed was a reversal and mockery of every value they held dear. Stauffenberg would take the lead in the famous July 20, 1944, attempt to kill Hitler, as we shall soon see.

- Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

Prayer is Incarnation

" Prayer is a moment of incarnation - God with us. God involved in the details of my life."

- Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

Preaching Too Soon

"Would-be theologians. ... must be on their guard lest by beginning too soon to preach they rather chatter themselves into Christianity then live themselves into it and find themselves at home there."

- Soren Kierkegaard. (Recorded in his Journal, July 11th, 1838) 

Leave Yourself Alone

"We began to inhibit, control and organize our immediate impulses, so that we could stop interfering with other people and our future selves."

- Jordan Peterson.

Forcing Nothing Good?

"An act that is compelled is not virtuous." 

- Stephen Molyneux

What Witnesses Have Seen

"Not all the witnesses died. And soon no one will call Stalin's government anything but a government of insanity and treason."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1. 

Starved In Prison To Avoid The Good Life

"... among the pows of many nationalities only the Soviets lived like this and died like this. None were worse off than the Soviets. Even the Poles, even the Yugoslavs, existed in far more tolerable conditions; and as for the English and the Norwegians, they were inundated by the International Red Cross with parcels from home. They didn't even bother to line up for the German rations. Wherever there were Allied pows camps next door, their prisoners, out of kindness, threw our men handouts over the fence, and our prisoners jumped on these gifts like a pack of dogs on a bone. 

The Russians were carrying the whole war on their shoulders and this was the Russian lot. Why? Gradually, explanations came in from here and there: it turned out that the U.S.S.R. did not recognize as binding Russia's signature to the Hague Convention on war prisoners. That meant that the U.S.S.R. accepted no obligation at all in the treatment of war prisoners and took no steps for the protection of its own soldiers who had been captured...

We did not recognize that 1907 convention until 1955. Incidentally, in his diary for 1915, Melgunov  reports rumors that Russia would not let aid go through to its prisoners in Germany and that their living conditions were worse than those of all other Allied prisoners -  simply in order to prevent rumors about the good life of war prisons inducing our soldiers to surrender willingly. There was some sort of continuity of ideas here."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL. 1.

About Feeling Religious?

"It seems that we Christians have been worshipping Jesus' journey instead of doing his journey. The first feels very religious; the second just feels human, and not glorious at all."

- Richard Rohr. Everything Belongs. 

Twisted Thinking

Interesting statement with a twist.....

"We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking."

-Richard Rohr. Everything Belongs. 

Hero's That Give Up

"The hero pushes against his own self-interested ambition and eventually discovers that it does not matter very much anyway."

- Richard Rohr. Everything Belongs.

Civilization Pushing Us To Resentment

"This present "civilization"... has brought to all strata of society and to all Races the following "gifts": restlessness, dissatisfaction, resentment, the need to go further and faster, and the inability to possess one's life in simplicity, independence, and balance. Modern civilization has pushed man onword; it has generated in him the need for an increasingly greater number of things; it has made him more and more insufficient to himself and powerless."

- Julius Evola. Revolt Against The Modern World 

Church Is The Easy Thing

"For some reason, it is easier to attend church services than quite simply to reverence the real - "the practice of the presence of God," as some have called it. Making this commitment doesn't demand a lot of dogmatic wrangling or managerial support, just vigilance, desire, and willingness to begin again and again.

- Richard Rohr. Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer 

Expelling Systems

" I watch how foolishly man guards his nothing - there by keeping us out,. True truly, God is hated here.

-  Street graffiti in Albuquerque New Mexico, as told by Richard Rohr

Better Than Trite Slogans

"We constantly need to press beyond the one-line summaries and the popular slogans."

- N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began

Love Unknown

"My song is love unknown,
My Savior's love to me,
Love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.

- Hymn. My Song Is Love Unknown.

How To Be Taught Better

".... by 1525 the protest movement involved much more than the mass, or even believers baptism - it involved the nature of the church. The concept of a church of committed Believers had taken the place of a church made up of the mixed multitude. This new church, like that of the Apostles, was to be made up only of those confessing Christ as Lord followed by Believers baptism, instead of everyone born in a given Parish. The Lord's Supper would then be observed by the baptized in a simple manner, shorn of its medieval trappings, as a pledge of Brotherly Love in remembrance of the one, all sufficient sacrifice of Christ.

Fritz Blanke (1525) has asserted that the characteristics of the church described above "were not to be found anywhere else at that time." Then he asked, "What is the source of this new view of the Christian Church?" 

Griebel answers: "We were listeners to Zwingli's sermons and readers of his writings, but one day we took the Bible itself in hand and we were taught better.""

- William Estep. The Anabaptist Story. An Introduction To Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism 

No Distinction

"The net tightened around the Jews as Bonhoeffer withdrew to America, knowing that he must return again as a pacifist -almost certainly to face death.

He became a resistance worker, and was part of a failed plot to assassinate Hitler. But it was his evasion of the call up for military service that led to his arrest..... 

He supported and prayed for his fellow prisoners. Perhaps he died because of his political convictions and not as a Christian martyr, but he would have said that there was no distinction between the two."

- Celtic Daily Prayer. The Journey Begins. Book One

Tranquillity of The Holy Spirit

"St. John of the Cross says that every quality or vitrue which the Spirit really produces in our souls has three distinguishing characters.....

  Tranquillity, Gentleness, Strength. 

.... Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry -these, even on the highest levels, are signs of the self-made and self acting Soul the spiritual parvenu"

- Evelyn Underhill. The Spiritual Life

Attentive To Time

"Therefore, be attentive to time and the way you spend it. Nothing is more precious. God, the master of time, never gives the future. He gives only the Present, Moment by moment, for this is the law of the created order.... 

You will not be able to excuse yourself in the last judgment, saying to God: "You overwhelm me with the future when I was only capable of living in the present."

- The Cloud of Unknowing

The Mistrust of Politicians and Bankers

I arrived at the White House on November 14th, 2008. It was not my first visit there, but by any measure, it was the most consequential. You occasion was the inaugural meeting of the newly-christened Group of 20, or "G20.......

The world was lunging from an economic slowdown to an economic meltdown to total panic. Financial markets were frozen. Stock markets were plunging. Shipping volumes were in a free fall. The global economic situation was visibly worsening by the day. In short order, the US economy alone would lose nearly 9 million jobs, see 10 million foreclosures, and shed nearly three and a half trillion dollars in retirement savings.

As Leaders, we were not under any illusion about finding Perfect Solutions. The options before us were all bad, and the only objective was to avoid imminent Calamity. The meeting's final communiqué committed to "whatever further action are necessary to stabilize the financial system. " And we meant it. The stage was set for massive worldwide deficit spending, unprecedented and coordinated monetary interventions, and huge corporate bailouts.

In the weeks and months that followed, a measure of stability return. The Panic subsided and financial institutions stopped collapsing. The stock market bottomed out. In fact, it returned to pre-recession levels faster than most of us had imagined. Corporate profits, too, recovered comparatively quickly.

For many people, however, things would never be the same. As the Great Recession faded for some, employment and wages leg behind for most......

This experience has taken its toll on the Public's enthusiasm for markets, capitalism, and globalization.....

Add insult to injury, when the crisis hit, the result was unremitting capitalism for the working class and socialist protection for the Wall Street financier who caused the Meltdown in the first place. Still, in many Elite circles, the old narratives quickly returned. Even Bank Executives were soon back to paying themselves bonuses - not that they had ever really stopped - and decrying any attempt to regulate their sector.....

I am not saying these things to denounce or disparage the American system. I still believe in the general efficacy of markets more precisely, of well-governed markets. History shows unambiguously that capitalism usually produces Fair better incomes than the Alternatives. The market has a unique ability to connect capital and ideas with customers, and to drive sustained economic growth. The tendency of government, by contrast, is to politicize the allocation of wealth and opportunity at every turn."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now: Politics and Leadership In the Age of Disruption 

Populism

Stephen Harpers book on the the topoc of Populism really is proving insightful. He is not fan of Trump nor does he think is a real conservative. He takes his shots at him. This was interesting. 

"The same pundits, press, and pollsters who deemed Trump utterly unelectable are now telling us why he won. They have become instant experts on what happened and what to do about it. If you are not skeptical, you should be. 

The good thing is that we do not have to look under rocks or rely on Talking Heads for the answer. Trump is trying out these really not that much of a mystery. The president has been Frank about the economic and social forces that motivated his voters and ultimately put him in the White House. In truth, he saw these Transit earlier and more clearly than anyone else. We need look no further than Trump's inaugural speech. It was a clear distillation of what was behind the populist uprising in 2016.......   

There were four major themes that came out of the speech (Trumps Inaugural). They were unique. They distinguish Trump's approach from those long taken by establishment politicians in both major parties. 

The first was, for lack of a better term, a certain economic realism. Particularly atypical for a Republican, there was no talk about the morality of the markets or praise of economic liberty. This was not a speech for think-tank Scholars or philosophical conservatives. Instead, Trump articulated a hard-headed focus on bringing industry back to America and restoring jobs for American workers. 

The second was trade. Trump challenged the assumption that free trade is inherently and always good for the United States. He called and trade deals that create and uneven playing field between American-based firms and international competitors, particularly trade agreements with China and Mexico. 

The third was nationalism, which includes the America First philosophy. Trump criticized representatives from both parties for putting Global priorities ahead of national imperatives. He pledged to govern in the national interest without nuance  or apology. 

The final thing was immigration. Trump broke with the bipartisan consensus in its favor. He notably rejected policy that effectively allows large numbers of low-skilled workers into the country......

While each of these subjects deserves further discussion, Trump did not have much to say about practical solutions. There were few policy proposals or commitments that went beyond slogans like "winning again." Eighteen months into his presidency, this is still proving to be a weakness. 

This does not, however, diminish Trump's insight into the electorate. It does not change the fact that he saw things that much more experienced observers had not. Indeed, in his inaugural speech, he was telling us what he had tapped into and why he won. He was reviewing the blueprint that got him to that Podium and into the Oval Office."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now: Politics and Leadership In the Age of Disruption 

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now: Politics and Leadership In the Age of Disruption 

Life Of Normal

"Life is neither particularly exciting or great, nor disastrous or grandly and interestingly tragic. Life is just trundling along, which is why I have been  quiet."
- Commuting To Timbuktu.. Swiss expart used to live in Djenne Mali

Reform Thy Self

The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example.
- A Tramp Abroad

A Cantankerous Chruch Choir

The choir always tittered and whispered all through the service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was.
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

A Fast Lie

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

Only Hogs Go To Church?

 “There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.”

 ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

What is Populism

"But what exactly is populism?....

At least since Trump's damp and dreary Inauguration Day, populism has become a loaded term. It has been made the default explanation for any political view or event that diverges from establishment opinion. Opposition to trade deals? Populism. Protest against immigration? It must be the populist. And unexpected election result? What else did populism? And So It Goes. One academic has the gist of it: most uses of the term populism are motivated by an establishment desire to denigrate any opposition to the "liberal consensus." Put differently: there is a tendency, particularly among contemporary liberals, to call political outcomes that they support "democracy," and ones that do not "populism." In other words, they see to wait equate populism with demagoguery.

That effort is itself demagoguery, for populism can have a positive interpretation. Put simply, it is any political movement that places The wider interests of the common people ahead of the special interest of the privileged few. If you think about it, in most every democracy, every political party tends to frame its core appeal in such terms, at least to some degree.

Is this such a nonsensical concept? In fact, there are times when the consensus of the political establishment diverges from the weight of a public opinion. For instance, the desirability of trade deals and of unskilled immigration are areas where the leadership of both the US Republican and Democratic parties has often parted company with the bulk of their supporters. When such divergence occurs, it is the tendency of the elites to try to take such political debate off the table. Populism is a force that can put these issues back on the agenda.

There have been many instances of elite consensus being challenged by the wider public. Economic orthodoxy in one peroid has become economic heresy in the next. Wars have been undertaken when they should not have, and pacifism has been practice in the face of inevitable conflict. Elites often have interest and perspectives that are distinct from those of the general public. And they are sometimes wrong.

Think of it this way. Populism is a framework for identifying political priorities and making political decisions. But it does not tell us much about the underlying policies per se. So-called populist politicians have stood for ideas that could be classified as left-wing, right-wing, or even Centrist."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now: Politics and Leadership In the Age of Disruption 

Voiceless

"These voters do not tend to have college degrees. They disproportionately work in Industries, such as manufacturing, they are facing ongoing disruption from low-cost competition and new technology. In short, they are in the parts of the Western economy that have fared poorly in the post-Cold War era, the age of globalization. 

And they were feeling voiceless. This is a common finding in different studies of both the Trump election and the Brexit referendum. The concerns of these people have been either largely ignored or, if acknowledged at all, vigorously denounced. There can be no doubt about the extent to which these voters believe that the political establishment does not care about them. They have come to mistrust both the traditional liberal/ center-left and conservative/ center-right options."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here Right Now: Politics and Leadership In the Age of Disruption. 

Salut Hitler's Sheep

"Meanwhile, Oster and Dohnanyi continued their work under the protection of Admiral Canaris. If ever anyone led a double life, Canaris did. He took morning horseback rides in Berlin’s Tiergarten with Heydrich, the piscine ghoul, and yet was at this very time using his power to undermine Heydrich and the Nazis at every turn. The gangsterism of Hitler sickened him. On a trip to Spain, while riding through the countryside in his open car, he stood and gave the Hitler salute to every herd of sheep he passed. “You never know,” he said, “whether one of the party bigwigs might be in the crowd.”"

- Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

He Preached For Free And The Price......

"He preached for free, and the price was worth it."

 - Huckleberry Finn 

- Mark Twain. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

No Economic Gods

"I begin by looking at market economics. The market is a powerful Institution for resource allocation and wealth creation. However, conservatives must resist market dogmatism. Policy-making does not occur within a textbook version of reality. It happens in the real world, with trade-offs, imperfect options, and non-economic considerations. Markets are a tool of good economic policy, but they are not an objective in and of themselves.

Groing public concerns about economic dislocation and trade are far from being without merit. However, they require a careful response that resorts neither to protectionism nor state dependency. People want meaningful work, as well as the financial security and personal dignity that comes with it. Conservatives must be champions for paid work and must set out an agenda that creates the conditions for it"

- Stephen Harper 

The Past Way Of Approaching The Future

Reading about populism the last few weeks and I encountered this interesting statement... 

"I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future."

- Ronald Reagan

The Christmas Story Up And Down

The Christmas Story

“In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down…down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature he has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.”

~ C.S. Lewis

The Flip-Flop Incarantion Of Jesus

“Man’s maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.”

~ Augustine

The Great Depression Politics

"It was the Great Depression, and misery, starvation, financial ruin, despair, and suicide were affecting thousands of lives. In response to the raw need of the people around them and their search for social justice, my parents lives and home were infused with a panoramic sense of history and big ideas of economic and social reform, democratic processes, and populist politics. They looked for deliverance from the awful conditions that threatened to destroy their community. Mostly, they refused to accept the prevailing political notion of the traditional political establishment that there was nothing I'm to be done but Riding the Storm."

- Preston Manning. Think Big: Adventures in Life and Democracy. 

Grinding Axe

"As a boy, I would sometimes do my homework in a little anteroom off his office. I would leave the door ajar and listen as he talked with visitors. It was there that I got my first exposure to politics and government. My father had told me that if I listened closely I would hear the sound most familiar to the ears of an elected politician - the sound of the grinding of an axe."

- Preston Manning. Think Big: Adventures in Life and Democracy

Bad Policies.

"I could have concluded what most commentators concluded. They had predicted Trump could not win- that he could never win - because he is a fool and a bigot. Therefore, they surmise, the voters must be fools and bigots as well. 

For many liberals, wedded to the belief that those who disagree with them are fools and bigots by definition, that answer may be good enough. For us conservatives, who fancy ourselves students of human nature and Human Experience, it should not. The ones with the foolish and preconceived notions were those who got it so wrong. It is a time to reexamine our assumptions. 

So here is my re-examination in a nutshell. A large proportion of Americans, including many American conservatives, voted for Trump because they are really not doing very well. They are not doing well in the world that we conservatives created after the Cold War. And they are not doing well, in part, because of some of the policies we conservatives have advocated. 

In short, the world of globalization is not working for many of our own people. We can pretend that this is a false perception, but it is not. We now have a choice. We can keep trying to convince people that they missunderstand their own lives, or we can try to understand what they are saying. Then we can decide what to do about it."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here, Right Now

For Truth You Have To Sit In Jail

"Fastenko, on the other hand, was the most cheerful person in the cell, even though, in view of his age, he was the only one who could not count on surviving and returning to freedom.  

Flinging an arm around my shoulders, he would say:  

 'To stand up for the truth is nothing! 

 For truth you have to sit in jail!  

Or else he taught me to sing this song from Tsarist hard-labor days: 

 'And if we have to perish 

 In mines and prisons wet,

Our cause will ever find renown 

In future Generations yet.' 

 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL1.

Astonished He Could Sob So

"He recalled out loud his wife's tears, hold years of tears: some due to love notes she had found in his trousers, some to some woman's underpants in his overcoat pocket, stuff there hurriedly in his automobile and forgotten. And when he was thus torn by burning self-pity, his armor of evil energy fell away, and before us was a ruined and clearly a good person. I was astonished that he could sob so."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1.