Decency is the immediate rightness of conduct given one's desires, as honesty is the immediate rightness of conduct given one's beliefs.

Decency does not guarantee justice, nor does honesty guarantee truth. Indeed, the pursuit of truth sometimes requires dishonesty, and the pursuit of justice sometimes requires indecency.

Science is the pursuit of truth, constrained by honesty, not decency.

Politics is the pursuit of justice, constrained by decency, not honesty.

Art is a scandal.

A conspiracy theorist is not someone who believes that a conspiracy took place. It is someone who thinks it is an empirical question whether it did.

"May God forgive what you have done to me. I cannot."

This sentiment can be perfectly sincere. Indeed, two people who have hurt each other can each pray for the other's forgiveness without themselves being able to forgive.

Two paintings, two harbors,
four years and five hundred
nautical miles apart. Blues
that only eyes have seen.

Philosophy elucidates the logic of assertion.
Poetry aggravates the pathos of injunction.