"Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny."
--Uncle Andrew, The Magician's Nephew
“In
my opinion, if, as the result of certain combinations, Kepler's or Newton's
discoveries could become known to people in no other way than by sacrificing
the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred or more people who were hindering the discovery,
or standing as an obstacle in its path, then Newton would have the right, and
it would even be his duty... to remove those ten or a hundred people, in
order to make his discoveries known to mankind. It by no means follows from
this, incidentally, that Newton should have the right to kill anyone he
pleases, whomever happens along, or to steal from the market every day.
Further, I recall developing in my article the idea that all... well, let's
say, the lawgivers and founders of mankind, starting from the most ancient and
going on to the Lycurguses, the Solons, the Muhammads, the Napoleons, and so
forth, that all of them to a man were criminals, from the fact alone that in
giving a new law, they thereby violated the old one, held sacred by society and
passed down from their fathers, and they certainly did not stop at shedding
blood either, if it happened that blood (sometimes quite innocent and shed
valiantly for the ancient law) could help them.”
--Raskolnikov,
Crime and Punishment
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