the-library-and-step-on-it: FROM THE VAULTS: Espionage The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad No man engage
the-library-and-step-on-it:FROM THE VAULTS:EspionageThe Secret Agent, Joseph ConradNo man engaged in a work he does not like can preserve many saving illusions about himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when our appointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception.The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John Le CarréI would say that since the war, our methods - out and those of the opposition - have become much the same. I mean you can’t be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government’s ‘policy’ is benevolent, can you now?Our Man In Havana, Graham GreeneI don’t care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations… I don’t think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren’t there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?Kim, Rudyard Kipling‘It is not a good fancy,’ said the llama. ‘What profit to kill men?’ Very little - as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.Harlot’s Ghost, Norman MailerBright was the light of my last martini on my moral horizon.The Thirty-Nine Steps, John BuchanI believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal. -- source link
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