"How do you know when an apology is true—when it means something, or can change something, or will last outside the moment?"

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Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson