One of the greatest attractions of patriotism — it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous. Sweet and decorous to murder, lie, torture for the sake of the fatherland.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Eyeless in Gaza, ch. 17 (1922)
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The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.
Alexander Solzhenitsen (1918-2008) Russian novelist, emigre [Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn]
Nobel Lecture (1972)
