Course 8—Lecture

Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)—in his famous oration to the crowd, Marc Anthony calls Brutus "an honorable man," knowing that Brutus was one of Caesar's assassins.
"Carnal Knowledge" (a story by T.C. Boyle)—a character reads a "comfortingly apocalyptic" book about the planet's demise, comforting because he feels virtuous reading it and doing so relieves him of taking action. A nicely ironic phrase.