Josiah Royce Quotes

Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side.

On that road of the informer, it is always night. I cannot ever inform against anyone without feeling something die within me. I inform without pleasure, because it is necessary.

I'm a traitor, but I don't consider myself a traitor.

The best crime novels are all based on people keeping secrets. All lying - you may think a lie is harmless, but you put them all together and there's a calamity.

Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.

To put the point sharply: If an informer in the French underground who sent a friend to the torture chambers of the Gestapo was equally a victim, then there can be no right or wrong in life that I understand.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

In 'Remember the Night,' love reformed her and corrupted him, which gave us the finely balanced moral that one man's meat is another man's poison.

I say, traitors; as some men live upon the reward of treachery, for their quiet and liberty; if it may be called a liberty, as it is redeemed with the betraying of the interest of Christ, and the blood of His people.

It's fun to play a character who lives on the edge, who is an ethical and moral mess, and is paying the price for some of his actions.

The soldier may die; the deserter must die.

There will always be men who from malice or for money will betray their kith and kin and there will always be men who, from love of adventure or a sense of duty, will risk a shameful death to secure information valuable to their country.

I love that Barry Seal is working for the CIA, and he's an awful liar. It just goes to how honest this character is at the end of the day, even as he rips off the country and the world to the tune of becoming one of the wealthiest men in America. There's an innate honesty, a purity to him.

There's nothing simple when you're in this 'Good Place.'

There is much said about the wickedness of doing evil that good may come. Alas! there is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

Once you tell your first lie, the first time you lie for him, you are in it with him, and then you are lost.

You have to do something bad to do something good.

All good things were formerly bad things; every original sin has turned into an original virtue.

Treason, which begins by being cautious, ends by betraying itself.

He knew I'd seen everything in that alley, that I'd stood there and done nothing. He knew that I'd betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time.

You're a liar!" He turned around, his black eyes snapping. "I'm also a thief, a gambler, a cheat, and a murdered. But this happens to be one of the rare times when I'm telling the truth. Go home. Consider yourself lucky. You've got a chance to start fresh. Not everyone can say the same.

Whose hearts must I break? What lies must I maintain? - Through whose blood am I to wade ?

A priestess of Avalon does not lie. But I am cast out of Avalon, and for this, and unless it is all to be for nothing, I must lie, and lie well and quickly

There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.

If it's anything that's going to result in suffering to animals or people, then I don't think [the end] justifies the means... Yeah; but then again if you could hurt ten people to save 100 people and there was no option, what would you do? I can't really address that.