The greatest bloodshed? The most murders? I would say two things: sincere love and a sincere devotion to liberty. … If you kill out of love or for the perfect utopia, you never stop killing because human nature is always imperfect.

Peter Viereck (1916–2006) American poet, historian, academic

“Clio is No Cleo: The Messiness of History,” lecture, Mt. Holyoke College (1997)
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Reprinted in Society (Mar 2004) and collected in Strict Wildness (2008).