That's the fine balance of a fiction writer...to be able to give your characters enough freedom to surprise you and yet still maintain some kind of artistic control.
Parents usually educate their children merely in such a manner than however bad the world may be, they may adapt themselves to its present conditions. But they ought to give them an education so much better than this, that a better condition of things may thereby be brought about by the future.
The enjoyment that all morality has given us to now and that it continues to give us--and so, what has kept it going up to now--lies in everyone's right, without lengthy investigation, to praise and blame. And who could endure life without praising and blaming!
We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there's an occupying force, as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them.
If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, as long as there is enough of them.
Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit.
For neither birth, nor wealth, nor honors, can awaken in the minds of men the principles which should guide those who from their youth aspire to an honorable and excellent life, as Love awakens them