[Twisted Reality]

"It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face...And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared."
- Kurtz, a character from Apocalypse Now, on the topic of waging war.

"This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there
was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world."
- Marlow, from the novel Heart of Darkness, describing the shallowness of colonialists in Africa.

In case you don't know, Heart of Darkness is the novel that was later adapted into them movie Apocalypse Now.

The first, I like mostly because it actually espouses an attitude that you should confront those things inside yourself that you find most repulsive, without flinching, with the sole purpose of learning. An attitude that espouses an unstinting devotion to truth, however unsavory it may be.

The second, mostly because it describes the kind of hypocrites who know how to approximate the forms of "moral behavior" but really only obey them out fear for external consequences. The sort of person who believes he knows the Truth, but was really just that middling student who likes reciting facts to actually knowing something. Basically, they're a hollow and contemptible lot that has no professional or intellectual drive.