Titanic Post

The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys:
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate’er it touches, and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
A mechanised automaton.

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Whatever little we have gained we have gained by agitation, while we have uniformly lost by moderation.

~ Daniel O’Connell, 1824