3
" The biblical lifestyle is always a witness of resistance to the status quo in politics, economics, and all society. It is a witness of resurrection from death. Paradoxically, those who embark on the biblical witness constantly risk death - through execution, exile, imprisonment, persecution, defamation, or harassment - at the behest of the rulers of this age. Yet those who do not resist the rulers of the present darkness are consigned to a moral death, the death of their humanness. That, of all the ways of dying, is the most ignominious. "
― William Stringfellow , Instead of Death: New and Expanded Edition
5
" There always are and always will be some strange personalities in our country, whatever the conditions, who though peaceful and not at all lazy will ever be beggars by some mysterious behest of destiny. They are always unmarried, always slovenly, always humble and downtrodden. They are forever fetching and carrying for the newly rich and newly exalted. All initiative and enterprise are a burden and a grief to them. They seem to have been born with the stipulation that they shall never do anything on their own, but always dance to someone else’s tune. It is their destiny to do what other people tell them to do. And last but not least, no change of circumstances, no upheavals can make them prosper. They will always be beggars! I have, indeed, noticed them not only among the common people, but in all walks of life, in all groupings, magazines, and associations. "
― Fyodor Dostoevsky , The House of the Dead