War & Peace Quote by Olin Miller

Forgiveness gets sold as moral elevation, but Olin Miller drags it back down to earth: it often arrives only after the power balance has been corrected. "It's far easier" is the tell - not "right", not "noble", just psychologically convenient. The line is a neat little indictment of the kind of pardon that comes with receipts: you can afford grace once your anger has stopped feeling like vulnerability.

The phrase "got even" does most of the dirty work. It's a blunt, almost folksy euphemism for retaliation, and Miller knows that bluntness is the point. He treats revenge not as a melodramatic sin but as a practical step in emotional bookkeeping. The subtext is that what we call forgiveness can be less about empathy and more about closure on our own terms: the injury stops haunting you once you've restored your sense of agency.

As a writer working in a culture that prized plainspoken wisdom, Miller is tapping into a distinctly American moral tension: we admire magnanimity, but we also worship the idea of not being pushed around. The line flatters the listener's self-image ("I'm the kind of person who forgives") while admitting the more primitive mechanism underneath ("...after I win"). Its sting is how recognizable it is: mercy as a luxury good, purchased with dominance, then marketed as virtue.