[Gaius Mucious to Porsina after a failed assassination attempt].. ‘when Fortune wore so menacing an aspect, yet as one more to be feared than fearing, “I am a Roman citizen,” he cried; “men call me Gaius Mucius. I am your enemy, and as an enemy I would have slain you; I can die as resolutely as I could kill: both to do and to endure valiantly is the Roman way. Nor am I the only one to carry this resolution against you: behind me is a long line of men who are seeking the same honour. Gird yourself therefore, if you think it worth your while, for a struggle in which you must fight for your life from hour to hour with an armed foe always at your door. Such is the war we, the Roman youths, declare on you. Fear no serried ranks, no battle; it will be between yourself alone and a single enemy at a time.” The king, at once hot with resentment and aghast at his danger, angrily ordered the prisoner to be flung into the flames unless he should at once divulge the plot with which he so obscurely threatened him. Whereupon Mucius, exclaiming, “Look, that you may see how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed upon renown!” thrust his hand into the fire that was kindled for the sacrifice.’

“…Would it not be better to live in peace at home, than to stray up and down the world in search of superfine bread without considering that many a one who goes out for wool, comes home quite shorn.” “My dear neice, replied Don Quixote, you are altogether out of your reckoning. Before I be shorn, I will pull and pluck off the beards of all those who pretend to touch a single hair of my mustache.”

If you desire to be an eccentric and a thinker, a 3/4 turn headshot–both hands front and center frozen in a grasping gesture–is of the utmost importance.

The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular.