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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| c144cd1 | We cannot afford the luxury known as conscience. The enemy we are up against certainly doesn't have one, so we are obliged to be absolutely rational. Cruel, if you like. People of good will, tolerant, liberal, whatever term you care to use, have always labored under a disadvantage. Those in power, those who want to hold on to power whatever the cost, have one ultimate recourse. If all else fails, they are prepared to kill. This is not avail.. | pacifism tyrannicide | John Brunner | |
| f290543 | I am I." "Tat tvam asi." | John Brunner | ||
| 544e6eb | You know, that's what's wrong with us on the public level. We fret about how to keep going the same old way when we should be casting around for another way that's better. Our society is hurtling in free fall toward heaven knows where, | John Brunner | ||
| 274b9d3 | I put it to you that no rule consciously invented by mankind since we acquired speech has force equivalent to those inherited from perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred thousand generations of evolution in the wild state. I further suggest that the chief reason why modern society is in turmoil is that for too long we claimed that our special human talents could exempt us from the heritage written in our genes. | John Brunner | ||
| 6d56456 | I find no evidence for believing that I matter any more than any other human being who ever existed or who ever will exist. Nor does any of them matter more than I do. We're elements in a process that began in the dim past and will develop through who knows what kind of future. | John Brunner | ||
| 94a92f6 | when you think about the history of liberty. It's the story of how principle has gradually been elevated above the whim of tyrants. When the law was defined as more powerful than the king, that was one great breakthrough. | John Brunner | ||
| 6864d83 | He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In a compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force. | John Brunner | ||
| 6c752e4 | And how do men call you?" "I have many names, but one nature. You may call me Mazda, or anything you please." | John Brunner | ||
| 5934c71 | a sneaking feeling that people are wrong when they say human beings can't keep track of the world any more, we have to leave it up to the machines. | John Brunner | ||
| 9500b70 | There's an ingrained distrust in our society of highly intelligent, highly trained, highly competent persons. One need only look at the last presidential election for proof of that. | John Brunner | ||
| 8a94e90 | I'm proud of it. Apart from marking the first occasion when I used my talent on behalf of other people without being asked and without caring whether I was rewarded--which was a major breakthrough in itself--the job was a pure masterpiece. Working on it, I realized in my guts how an artist or an author can get high on the creative act. The poker who wrote Precipice's original tapeworm was pretty good, but you could theoretically have killed.. | computers first-hacktivist hacker-folklore hackers hacking hacktivism | John Brunner | |
| ffd1458 | How right you are." She shivered. "Some of my colleagues at G2S, you know, live at Trianon, where they test new life-styles. And they boast about how their actions are monitored night and day, compare the advantages of various ultramodern bugs ... I don't know how they can stand it." | John Brunner | ||
| 5a1108d | You can't blame the people who can't hear the warnings; you have to blame the ones who can, and who ignore them. | John Brunner | ||
| 1707a5e | Time entails memory, memory entails conscience, conscience entails thought for the future, which is itself implied by the existence of time. | John Brunner | ||
| 20e39a3 | Unlike the riotous appetites of adolescence, his present cravings had a tragic tinge, they were cravings for the appetites, metacravings, wanting to want. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 0a6468f | David Gerrold never wrote an episode that Gene thought was shootable ... then how do we account for something titled "The Trouble with Tribbles"?)" | Harlan Ellison | ||
| bcd1941 | Kirk: How close will we come to the nearest Klingon outpost if we continue on our present course? Chekov: Vun parsec, sir. Close enough to smell them. Spock: That is illogical, ensign. Odors cannot travel through the vacuum of space. Chekov: I vas making a little joke, sir. Spock: Extremely little, ensign. | pavel-chekov spock star-trek | David Gerrold | |
| d7ca667 | There's this thing that writers talk about--where the characters take on a life of their own and they run away with the story, taking it off to places the author never intended to go. That's what happened here. Except, that's not what really happens. That's one of the stories that writers tell about storytelling. What really happened was that I sat and wrote and had a conversation with myself--a conversation that wasn't possible, unless I.. | David Gerrold | ||
| 31f9fb5 | Eagles live in the darkness, And the sons of the Alps Cross over the abyss without fear On lightly-built bridges. *** Growing weak on the separate mountains -- Then give us calm waters; | Friedrich Hölderlin | ||
| 5e1b298 | Solo en el nino reside la libertad. | Friedrich Hölderlin | ||
| aa06065 | Ein Zeichen sind wir, deutungslos, Schmerzlos sind wir und haben fast Die Sprache in der Fremde verloren. Wenn namlich uber Menschen Ein Streit ist an dem Himmel und gewaltig Die Monde gehen, so redet Das Meer auch und Strome mussen Den Pfad sich suchen. Zweifellos Ist aber Einer. Der Kann taglich es andern. Kaum bedarf er Gesetz. Und es tonet das Blatt und Eichbaume wehn dann neben Den Firnen. Denn nicht vermogen Die Himmlischen alles. Nam.. | Friedrich Hölderlin | ||
| 0b2c13c | Everything that I have known You'll write to me to remind Me of, and likewise I shall do The whole past I'll recount to you | friedrich-hölderlin if-from-the-distance j-c-patrick | Friedrich Hölderlin | |
| 971be09 | Oh, you wretches who feel all this, who, even as I, cannot allow yourselves to speak of man's being here for a purpose, who, even as I, are so utterly in the clutch of the Nothing that governs us, so profoundly aware that we are born for nothing, that we love a nothing, believe in nothing, work ourselves to death for nothing only that little by little we may pass over into nothing - how can I help it if your knees collapse when you think of.. | Friedrich HölderlinHölderlin | ||
| f8af2e5 | Bergoglio himself has quoted lines the nineteenth-century German poet Friedrich Holderlin dedicated to his own grandmother; they end 'may the man not betray what he promised as a child'. | Paul Vallely | ||
| 735c706 | Aber Freund! wir kommen zu spat. Zwar leben die Gotter Aber uber dem Haupt droben in anderer Welt. | Friedrich Hölderlin | ||
| 1825016 | But the sower Loves to see a woman Fallen asleep in the daytime Over a half-knitted stocking. | Friedrich Hölderlin | ||
| 60cab28 | Para que en el vacilante intervalo, para que en lo oscuro haya algo aferrable. FRIEDRICH HOLDERLIN | Byung-Chul Han | ||
| d7eca5c | I just have to get rid of this piece of glass,' said Anne. 'I guess something broke here earlier?' 'It was me,' said Patrick. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 265154c | And my heart is a handful of dust, / And the wheels go over my head, / And my bones are shaken with pain, / For into a shallow grave they are thrust, / Only a yard beneath the street,' something, something, 'enough to drive one mad. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 45fbf8e | Observe Everything. Always think for yourself. Never let other people make important decisions for you. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| a04d0fe | A little Indian guy being sneered at by monsters of English privilege would normally have unleashed the full weight of Anne's loyalty to underdogs, but this time it was wiped out by Vijay's enormous desire to be a monster of English privilege himself. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 6fa815b | Talking of 'letting go of a lot of stuff,'" his father handed the phrase back to Seamus, held by the corner like someone else's used handkerchief...." | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 0cb4769 | She liked the feeling that Maine was basically inhospitable, that it would soon shake out its summer visitors, like a dog on a beach. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 300e349 | No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too small if it's cherished | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| a9a0006 | Other people knew what they were meant to say, knew what they were meant to mean, and other people still - otherer people - knew what the other people meant when they said it. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| b12c430 | Most people either felt regret at staying with someone for too long, or regret at losing them too easily. I manage to feel both ways at the same time about the same object. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 8c2692a | The mess that's emerging...at least reflects the truth of my experience, the fact that every contemplation is interrupted, and that every interruption becomes further object of contemplation, and that this rhythm of delusion and revelation feels as if it's essential to the nature of consciousness considering itself. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| ed6b4c6 | What if memories were just memories, without any consolatory or persecutory power? Would they exist at all, or was it always emotional pressure that summoned images from what was potentially all of experience so far? | memories past patrick-melrose | Edward St. Aubyn | |
| ac26a46 | a face like a creme brulee after the first blow of the spoon, | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 13ae1d4 | That was the wonderful thing about historical novels, one met so many famous people. It was like reading a very old copy of magazine. | humor | Edward St. Aubyn | |
| 21d00d9 | There seemed to be no one in a position of power, from the Vatican to Wall Street, from Parliament to Scotland Yard to Fleet Street, who could think of anything better to do than abuse it.... | power | Edward St. Aubyn | |
| 0d1877d | It was as if every time she played the ace of spades, it was beaten by a small trump. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| e7012f5 | The Talking Heads pulsed from every speaker. 'The centre is missing,' gasped David Byrne, and Patrick could not help agreeing with him. How did they know exactly what he was feeling? It was spooky. | Edward St. Aubyn | ||
| 8240416 | forced to observe the fringes of unconsciousness and make darkness visible; | Edward St. Aubyn |