In a Cuban courtroom in 1953, Fidel Castro, charged with leading the armed attack against the Moncada Barracks in July of that year, defended himself with a four-hour speech that included the declaration “Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.”
Nothing is so soothing to our self esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.
—Van Wyck Brooks
The Church used to absolve sinners; today it has the gall to absolve sins.
—Nicholas Gomez Davila
We must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd, lively or sad, loyal or corrupt, from whom there is nothing to be expected but fleeting emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, which leave no trace behind them.
—Sarah Bernhardt
The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
—Primo Levi
No one to blame! That was why most people led lives they hated, with people they hated. How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one’s nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.
—Erica Jong
If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
—Charlotte Bronte
My brothers who live after us,
Don’t harden you hearts against us too,
If you have mercy now on us,
God may have mercy upon you.
Five, six, you see us, hung out to view.
When the flesh that nourished us well
Is eaten piecemeal, ah, see it swell,
And we, the bones, are dust and gall,
Let no one make fun of our ill,
But pray that God absolves us all.—Francois Villon, Ballad of the Hanged Men
In days gone by, we were afraid of dying in dishonor or a state of sin. Nowadays, we are afraid of dying fools. Now the fact is that there is no Extreme Unction to absolve us of foolishness. We endure it here on earth as subjective eternity.
—Jean Baudrillard
The judge is condemned when the criminal is absolved.
—Publilius Syrus, Maxims
I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist’s code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don’t have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry.
—P. J. O’Rourke
The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
—Justice Anthony Kennedy
