There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt allied to feelings of impotence. Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred.

Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.

If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

Our thought has been Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself, while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves.

But what am I? An infant crying in the night; An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.

Asks the Possible of the Impossible, Where is your dwelling-place? In the dreams of the Impotent, comes the answer.

We look for some reward of our endeavors and are disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun.

The realization that he was utterly powerless was like the blow of a sledgehammer, yet it was curiously calming as well.

The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.