Perhaps it is fitting that the best of our kind are so plagued with sadness, having seen so much of it themselves, the desire to inflict the same in those around them never truly takes root.
facts
To be respected is to obtain mastery of the past, to be feared is to make ones domain of the future. To be both however, is to take command of the crossroads that between both past and future, the present.
The religious tomes speak of a god creating man in his own image. I cannot speak of the veracity of that for its matter of faith and not facts. However what I do know is that man and his kind has and continues to, shape this world in his own reflecting both the great cruelties and compassion that resides within him.