What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment... Inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

Jefferson, Thomas. "Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816." The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Including the Autobiography, The Declaration of Independence & His Public and Private Letters, edited by Adrienne Koch and William Peden. Modern Library, 1998.

Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. "Iphigenia in Tauris." Goethe: The Collected Works: Verse Plays and Epic, edited by Cyrus Hamlin and Frank Ryder. Vol. 8, Princeton University Press, 1995, act 4, sc. 4.