Justice & Law Quote by Morris West

West writes like a novelist who’s seen too many tidy conversions to trust them. The repetition of "One has to" isn’t self-help; it’s a litany, a forced march away from comforting myths. Pain isn’t framed as a glitch to be managed but as rent you pay for being alive. That phrasing matters: a "condition of existence" turns suffering from personal failure into ontological fact, stripping it of melodrama and, oddly, restoring a kind of dignity.

The most provocative verb here is "court". Doubt and darkness aren’t merely endured; they’re pursued, flirted with, treated as necessary company if you want the real thing: knowledge. West is pushing back against the religious and political habit of calling certainty a virtue. In his universe, certainty is often a refusal to look, while doubt is an ethical discipline. The subtext is almost accusatory: if you demand illumination without shadow, you’re not seeking truth, you’re shopping for reassurance.

Then comes the hard paradox: "a will stubborn in conflict" paired with "total acceptance of every consequence". West wants both the clenched fist and the open hand. Fight, but don’t pretend you can fight your way out of consequence, mortality included. Given West’s long preoccupation with faith under pressure, institutional power, and moral compromise, this reads as a secularized spirituality: a creed for people who can’t afford innocence. It’s not optimism. It’s consent to reality, without surrender.