We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority. . . though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our "white mythology. " Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.
Vincent de Paul
Use gentle methods to get whatever good you can from priests and monks who are slaves, as well as from merchants and captives. Resort to severe measures only in extreme cases, for fear lest the hardship they are already enduring in their state of captivity, joined to the strictness you might want to exercise in virtue of your authority, drive them to despair. . . . It is not light they need, but strength, and strength permeates through the external balm of words and good example.
