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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 4082e48 | to shrink the circle of intimate community to the smallest possible circumference. This is the spoiling of faithful friendship. | Ralph C. Wood | ||
| be4c0c8 | Boyfriend?" Francis said. "Really?" "Yes. Why is that a surprise?" Looking away from Reg, Francis started typing. "I didn't figure you for gay." "I'm sitting here being interrogated because I'm dating your biggest client, remember?" Reg reminded him. "You do realize Jeremy Jameson has a dick, right?" | Cardeno C. | ||
| 436c519 | Imagine the same scene in HAMLET if Pullman had written it. Hamlet, using a mystic pearl, places the poison in the cup to kill Claudius. We are all told Claudius will die by drinking the cup. Then Claudius dies choking on a chicken bone at lunch. Then the Queen dies when Horatio shows her the magical Mirror of Death. This mirror appears in no previous scene, nor is it explained why it exists. Then Ophelia summons up the Ghost from Act One a.. | his-dark-materials literature philip-pullman plotting shakespeare | John C. Wright | |
| 18865d8 | You're more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action. | John C. Maxwell | ||
| b04ec96 | Compelled belief is no belief at all. | Thomas C. Foster | ||
| f461082 | Notwithstanding our boastful assertions to the world, for nearly a century, that our government was based on the consent of the people, it rests upon force, as much as any government that ever existed. - Robert E. Lee | american-civil-war-biography confederate-army robert-e-lee union-army | William C. Davis | |
| 94af456 | Grant was forty-two and Lee fifty-seven, Grant at the peak of health and energy, while Lee feared his weakening body and lagging faculties. Each was defending his notion of home. Grant by now was the most popular man in the Union, arguably more so even than Lincoln. Lee was easily the most important man in the Confederacy, his popularity and influence, had he chosen to use it, far outstripping Davis's. Unquestionably, they were at this mome.. | american-civil-war-biography confederate-army confederate-states-of-america robert-e-lee union-army | William C. Davis | |
| 6d07022 | The mythology serves purposes darker than sentiment, nothing more so than the currently popular, and arrantly nonsensical, assertion that Lee freed his inherited slaves in 1862 before the war was over, while Grant kept his until the Thirteenth Amendment freed them in 1865. The subtext is transparent. If Southerner Lee freed his slaves while Northerner Grant kept his, then secession and the war that followed can hardly have had anything to d.. | american-civil-war-biography confederate confederate-states-of-america robert-e-lee slavery slavery-in-the-united-states | William C. Davis | |
| d99db39 | Curnow had once remarked that Dr. Chandra had the sort of physique that could only be achieved by centuries of starvation. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| d4c6d3c | Long ago it had been decided that, however inconsequential rudeness to robots might appear to be, it should be discouraged. All too easily, it could spread to human relationships as well. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 9808a85 | He lifted the telephone receiver and pressed it against the plastic of his helmet. If there had been a dialing sound he could have heard it through the conducting material. But, as he had expected, there was only silence. So--it was all a fake, though a fantastically careful one. And it was clearly not intended to deceive but rather--he hoped--to reassure. That was a very comforting thought; nevertheless he would not remove his suit until h.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| bbb09b3 | Oh, I can think of many reasons. Perhaps it's a signal, so that any strange ship entering our universe will know where to look for life. Perhaps it marks the centre of galactic administration. Or perhaps--and somehow I feel that this is the real explanation--it's simply the greatest of all works of art. But it's foolish to speculate now. In a few hours we shall know the truth. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 0063749 | There's nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments. Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels? If you went without sleep and did nothing else, you could follow less than a twentieth of the entertainment that's available at the turn of a switch! No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges - absorbing but never creating. D.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 4e53ad4 | Here was a revelation which no one could doubt or deny; here, seen by unknown magic of Overlord science, were the true beginnings of all the world's great faiths. Most of them were noble and inspiring, but that was not enough. Within a few days, all mankind's multitudinous messaihs had lost their divinity. Beneath the fierce and passionless light of truth, faiths that had sustained millions for twice a thousand years vanished like morning d.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 15a0a45 | A feeling of foreboding, and, indeed, of physical as well as psychological discomfort, had come over him. He suddenly recalled--and this did nothing at all to help--a phrase he had once come across: "Someone is walking over your grave." | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 9b70ee8 | As to the nature of that drive, one thing was now certain, even though all else was mystery. There were no jets of gas, no beams of ions or plasma thrusting Rama into its new orbit. No one put it better than Sergeant Professor Myron, when he said, in shocked | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| d85778b | Many of the fundamental physical constants-which as far as one could see, God could have given any value He liked-are in fact very precised adjusted, or fine-tuned, to produce the only kind of Universe that makes our existence possible. | possibility | Arthur C. Clarke | |
| 4a61256 | The outermost--Jupiter XXVII--moved backwards in an unstable path nineteen million miles from its temporary master. It was the prize in a perpetual tug-of-war between Jupiter and the Sun, for the planet was constantly capturing short-lived moons from the asteroid belt, and losing them again after a few million years. Only the inner satellites were its permanent property; the Sun could never wrest them from its grasp. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 88d07d6 | I hope you're right. Apart from that, won't there be trouble when he discovers what you're trying to do? Because he will, you know." "I'll take that risk. Besides, we understand each other rather well." The physicist toyed with his pencil and stared into space for a while. "It's a very pretty problem. I like it," he said simply. Then he dived into a drawer and produced an enormous writing pad, quite the biggest that Stormgren had ever seen... | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| bfcdb32 | How obvious, now, was that mathematical ratio of its sides, the quadratic sequence 1:4:9! And how naive to have imagined that the series ended there, in only three dimensions! | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 1d938d4 | It had been virtually shattered by two inventions, which were, ironically enough, of purely human origin and owed nothing to the Overlords. The first was a completely reliable oral contraceptive: the second was an equally infallible method--as certain as fingerprinting, and based on a very detailed analysis of the blood--of identifying the father of any child. The effect of these two inventions upon human society could only be described as .. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 0967334 | Much had been lost during the centuries, for men seldom bother to preserve the commonplace articles of everyday life. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 9fbbc81 | Hello, Dave," said Hal presently. "Have you found the trouble?" This" | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| b514b7a | There was little work left of a routine, mechanical nature. Men's minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photo-electric cells, and a cubic meter of printed circuits could perform. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 1496653 | First rule of government of the people, by the people, for the people: Never tell the people! | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| ffd5ba2 | But the characteristic that is truly special about our species...[is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme.... | human-life life | Arthur C. Clarke | |
| 246649f | Otsusta minu ule mu tegude jargi, ehkki neid on vahe, mitte mu sonade jargi, kuigi neid on palju. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 5e0a390 | He broke open the first of the meal packets, and inspected it without enthusiasm. The name on the label--SPACETASTIES--was enough to put him off. And he had grave doubts about the promise printed underneath: 'Guaranteed crumbless'. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| f841725 | Pero nadie pensaba que llegaria muy lejos, porque ni siquiera creo que fuera capaz de integrar e elevado a x. - ?Es posible tal ignorancia? - pregunto alguien con asombro. - Puede que este exagerando. Digamos x por e elevado a x. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 6d27e07 | And even if it never makes it to the big screen, millions of people have watched a very impressive version of the opening in the box office hit Independence Day. So when/if Childhood's End is finally made into a movie, the popcorn set will undoubtedly think we've ripped off I.D. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 564b2fd | In my life I have found two things of priceless worth: learning and loving. Nothing else--not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake--can possibly have the same lasting value. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 71f117e | wonder if he can feel pain? Bowman thought briefly. Probably not, he told himself; there are no sense organs in the human cortex, after all. The human brain can be operated on without anesthetics. He | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 5bdc3f9 | the next day the government of South Africa announced that full civil rights would be restored to the white minority. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 683de56 | That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him--or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it--but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 462bc70 | We're particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10--the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| fce0a29 | On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| a7a39eb | There's nothing left to struggle for, and there are too many distractions and entertainments. Do you realize that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels? If you went without sleep and did nothing else, you could follow less than a twentieth of the entertainment that's available at the turn of a switch! No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges - absorbing but never creating. D.. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 14e4d6a | Do you believe in ghosts, Dim?" "Certainly not: but like every sensible man, I'm afraid of them. Why do you ask?" | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 4259194 | No group can survive, let alone thrive, unless what is good for the overall community is more important than individual freedom. Take, for example, resource allocation. How can anyone with any intelligence possibly justify, in terms of the overall community, the accumulation and hoarding of enormous material assets by a few individuals when others do not even have food, clothing, and other essentials?" In" | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 404258b | But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| bb51bc2 | No one worried except a few philosophers. The race was too intent upon savoring its new-found freedom to look beyond the pleasures of the present. Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias--boredom. Perhaps | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| 31939d6 | Historically, both fear and public opinion were notoriously unconcerned about morality. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| df77cd2 | Ladies and gentlemen, those flames from the port engines are perfectly normal. The stewardess will be coming around in a moment to serve coffee, tea, or milk. I'm sorry we don't have anything stronger on this flight--regulations don't permit it. | Arthur C. Clarke | ||
| c34eb4d | Even by the twenty-second century, no way had yet been discovered of keeping elderly and conservative scientists from occupying crucial administrative positions. Indeed, it was doubted if the problem ever would be solved. | Arthur C. Clarke |