" One way of phrasing it might be to say that injustice and irrationality are inevitable parts of the human condition, but that challenges to them are inevitable also.

On Sigmund Freud’s memorial in Vienna appear the words: 'The voice of reason is small, but very persistent.'

Philosophers and theologians have cogitated or defined this in differing ways, postulating that we respond to a divinely implanted 'conscience' or that—as Adam Smith had it—we carry around an unseen witness to our thoughts and doings and seek to make a good impression on this worthy bystander.

Neither assumption need be valid; it’s enough that we know that this innate spirit exists.

We have to add the qualification, however, that even if it is presumptively latent in all of us, it very often remains just that—latent.

Its existence guarantees nothing in itself, and the catalytic or Promethean moment only occurs when one individual is prepared to cease being the passive listener to such a voice and to become instead its spokesman, or representative. "

― Christopher Hitchens , Letters to a Young Contrarian