“You are the advocate of the dead.”

The old man nodded.  “I am. People talk about being fair to this one and that one,
but nobody I ever heard talks about doing right by them.  We take everything they
had, which is all right. And spit, most often, on their opinions, which I suppose
is all right too.  But we ought to remember now and then how much of what we have
we got from them. I figure while I’m still here I ought to put a word in for them.”

    -- Gene Wolfe, Citadel of the Autarch