Affirmative action is a little like the professional football draft. The NFL awards its No. 1 draft choices to the lowest-ranked team in the league. It doesn’t do this out of compassion or guilt. It’s done for mutual survival. They understand that a league can only be as strong as its weakest team.

When life still hesitates to touch us, when neither duty nor guilt dares lay a hand upon us

Suicide is something that hangs around forever, dropping load after load of guilt on the living.

Action and care will in time wear down the strongest frame, but guilt and melancholy are poisons of quick dispatch.

The guilt of a government is the crime of a whole country

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty’.

Because she—you hear her—she’s calling,
and is always going to call, and it’s better
both of us die by the dagger without anyone
seeing us, Orestes, and die a fit death.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

Say “NO” without guilt. Say “YES” without fear.