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51 | As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It's not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination. | |
52 | As I was saying... why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side? | |
53 | Authors are the only people who get in trouble if they steal from others and try to hide it, but get praised for stealing when they do it in the open. Remember that. It'll help you a lot in college. | |
54 | Aye, but by choice, not by coercion. When rightness rules by force, it doth cease to be right. | |
55 | Because the Middle Ages erred in one direction, does it follow that there is no error in the opposite direction? | |
56 | Because they were real illusions.... Be sure, children - illusions can do as much harm as anything else in this world. By clouding your perception of reality, illusions can kill. | |
57 | Because those most devious know the power of suggestion is more powerful than reality. Reality can be brutally disappointing, whereas there resides limitless possibility in mere suggestion. It is the driving force behind belief and faith. | |
58 | Because... it's the only way he can avoid massive guilt. Once he gave in to temptation, he became a convert to his own particular vice, with all the fanaticism of any convert. You might say he's acquired a vested interest in sin, and to disown it would be to ruin him. | |
59 | Before the crowds who gathered to hear his words, the Minister had called for new measures - unspecified - to deal with violence. Such measures were always unspecified and only rarely was any real action taken. The mere impassioned plea was all that was required to convince the people the Minister was decisive and effective. Perception was the goal and all that really mattered. Perception was easily accomplished, required little effort, and it never had to stand the test of reality. | |
60 | Before you do anything rash, like pressing another button, may I offer an alternative suggestion? | |
61 | Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove. | |
62 | Blank people behind blank windows.... Faceless people wielding power without having to take the responsibility for the use of that power. Doing their daily work without knowing - probably without even caring - what the ultimate results of that work would be. It was why bureaucracies grew and flourished. | |
63 | Brigadier, a straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting. | |
64 | But he has the attitude, set in concrete, that virtue is measured by one's disaffection from the power structure under which one lives. Such a person builds a fortress of self-serving piety, resisting authority of any kind at every turn whether for good or ill. | |
65 | But here there is fire, to warm the people who tell me we are all equal now, how there will no longer be some put before others and I must therefore not be allowed to keep what is mine. Isn't it odd, that the people who tell me how we are to all be the same under the alliance with Darken Rahl and do no work other than to divide up the fruit of my labors, are all well fed, and warm, and have fine clothes on their backs. But my family goes hungry and cold. | |
66 | But I like confusion. Too often we belittle it as a lesser Passion. But confusion leads a scholar to study further and push for secrets. No great discovery was ever made by a femalen or malen who was confident they knew everything. | |
67 | But it seems to me that some activists within the gay-rights movement are interested in something else. Special protection under the law is not good enough. They want to force you to change your way of thinking - twenty-first-century thought police. They want to attack religious beliefs that conflict with their own. | |
68 | But now he recalled Kuhn, asserting that scientists who used different paradigms existed in literally different worlds, epistemology being such an integral component of reality. Thus Aristoteleans simply did not see the Galilean pendulum, which to them was a body falling with some difficulty; and in general, scientists debating the relative merits of competing paradigms simply talked right through each other, using the same words to discuss different realities. | |
69 | But some things have to be done. It's better to do them, than to live with the fear of them. | |
70 | But the line between moral behavior and narcissistic self-righteousness is thin and difficult to discern. The man who stands before a crowd and proclaims his intention to save the seas is convinced that he is superior to a man who merely picks up his own and other people's litter on the beach, when in fact the latter is in some small way sure to make the world a better place, while the former is likely to be a monster of vanity whose crusade will lead to unintended destruction. | |
71 | But there were different types of intelligence, and not all of them were subject to analytic testing. Sax had noticed this fact in his student years: that there were people who would score high on any intelligence test, and were very good at their work, but who at the same time could walk into a room of people and within an hour have many of the occupants of that room laughing at them, or even despising them. | |
72 | But to mourn, that's different. To mourn is to be eaten alive with homesickness for the person. | |
73 | But weakness can imitate strength if bound properly, just as cowardice can imitate heroism if given nowhere to flee. | |
74 | But you don't get cheers by insulting your audience, nor return engagements either... | |
75 | But. Here we are, and here is always the place we must start from. Eh? | |
76 | By punishing all who speak against them in even the slightest way... If thou dost let the law prohibit certain words, then evil men will punish folk that they dislike, by claiming they did speak the words prohibited. | |
77 | Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery. | |
78 | Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation. | |
79 | Circular logic will only make you dizzy, Doctor. | |
80 | Common sense and primal instinct tell me that the bad guy should die and the good girl should live. Call me carnal. | |
81 | Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway. | |
82 | Culture carries no privilege to exist. Cultures do not have value simply because they are. Some cultures, the world is better off without. | |
83 | Culture masked truth - but there could be only one truth. | |
84 | Dalton knew how easily the minds of the people could be manipulated with the right words, especially if people were distracted by other matters and confused with contradictions. | |
85 | Deactivating a generator loop without the correct key is like repairing a watch with a hammer and chisel. One false move and you'll never know the time again. | |
86 | Denying reality only works as long as enough powerful people see a benefit in playing along. | |
87 | Deserve Victory. | |
88 | Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn't trust it. Often you couldn't even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else - coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer. | |
89 | Discipline your boy to fend for himself and others as if there were no government, no church, no school, no courts, no therapy, no drugs and no cops to lean on to make things all better. Yeah, raise him to feel as if it is his duty to be the provider, to educate his children, to defend his family and nation, to judge disputes, to offer worship, to give spiritual advice and comfort, and to do all of this without acting like a chick. | |
90 | Discussion is for the wise or the helpless and I am neither. | |
91 | Do come on. Aren't you supposed to be programmed to be user friendly or something? | |
92 | Do not do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it. | |
93 | Do not think that thou shalt change him, daughter. No woman can ever change a man to become what she doth wish him to be. Marriage will change him, aye - not all at once, not in the moment the priest pronounces thee wed, not in a month, not even a year, but gradually, little by little, he will change - as wilt thou thyself. Thou canst but hope that he will change more closely to that which thou dost wish him to be. | |
94 | Do you hear that? That's a warning. The TARDIS is dying. | |
95 | Do you know like we were saying, about the earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid, the first time they tell you that the world's turning, and you just can't quite believe it 'cuz everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. And I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am. | |
96 | Do you think for once you could arrive before the nick of time? | |
97 | Do, or do not. There is no try. | |
98 | Doctrine by its nature is fallible. When it becomes inflexible, it opens itself to mistakes. You can't live your life by principles alone; you have to have compassion, too. If you don't, the best principles in the world can be corrupted into inhumanity. It's people who matter, not causes. | |
99 | Does death invalidate life? No, it defines it, and in so doing creates its value. | |
100 | Don’t be mean. We don’t have to be mean. 'Cause, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. | |