We grow with years more fragile in body, but morally stouter, and can throw off the chill of a bad conscience almost at once. – Logan Pearsall Smith, “Age and Death,” Afterthoughts, 1931

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. – Joseph Baretti, quoted by James Boswell, 1766 (commonly misattributed to Samuel

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. – Michel de Montaigne

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow