Peter Brown > Quotes

“Roz, what are you meant to do?”
“I do not believe I have a purpose.”
“Ha! I respectfully disagree,” said Swooper. “Clearly, you are meant to
build.”
“I think Roz is meant to grow gardens.”
“Roz is definitely meant to care for Brightbill.” “Perhaps I am simply meant to help others.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Hello, son. How long was I out? It seemed like only an instant to me.”
“You were out for a few minutes,” said the gosling as he hugged his mother. “But it seemed like forever to me.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Everything has a purpose." It was Swooper's turn to lecture the lodgers. "The sun is meant to give light.
Plants are meant to grow. We owls are meant to hunt."
"We mice are meant to hide."
"We raccoons are meant to scavenge."
"Roz, what are you meant to do?"
"I do not believe I have a purpose."
"Ha! I respectfully disagree," said Swooper. "Clearly, you are meant to build."
"I think Roz is meant to grow gardens."
"Roz is definitely meant to care for Brightbill."
"Perhaps I am simply meant to help others.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Roz stood on the peak and watched the sun sink behind the ocean. She watched shadows slowly spread over the island and up the mountain-side. She watched the stars come out, one by one, until the sky was filled with a million points of light. It was the first night of the robot's life.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“To be licensed to exist was not necessarily a license to be loved in an increasingly Christian world.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000

“Up to 700 A.D., it was assumed that the Christian family cared for their own dead. The clergy played little role in burial and none whatsoever in the arrangement and decoration of tombs.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000

“The goose flapped her wings. "Are you sure you did not eat his parents?"
"I am sure I did not eat his parents," said Roz, returning to her normal voice. "I do not eat anything, including parents”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Mama! Mama!" peeped the gosling
"I am not your mother," said the robot.
"Mama! Mama!"
"I am not your mother."
"Food! Food!”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“The robot's programming stopped her from being violent, but nothing stopped her from being annoying. So Roz plucked pinecones from the nearby branches and lobbed them down at the bears.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“I feel... different. Is being different the same as being defective?" "I don't think so," said Jaya. "Or else we're all a little defective.”
― Peter Brown

“There are many kinds of mothers," said the robot. "Some mothers spend their whole lives caring for their young. Some lay eggs and immediately abandon them. Some care for the offspring of other mothers. I have tried to act like your mother, but no, I am not your birth mother.”
― Peter Brown, Wild Robot Series 2 Books Collection Set By Peter Brown

“The cry of the poor in the Old Testament was a cry for justice. It was a cry made by free men and women, often of moderate—some even of considerable—means. It was the cry of victims. But these were not the victims of poverty so much as they were the victims of violence and oppression brought upon them by persons more powerful than themselves.28 It was this relation of petition to justice that gave weight to the Hebrew assonance by which ze‘aqah—“the cry”—was expected to be met by zedaqah—“righteousness.” And “righteousness” was achieved through an act of justice granted by the powerful to the weak. The word only later came to mean alms given by the wealthy to the poor. This “elegant juxtaposition of words” did not escape the alert eyes of Jerome, in 408–10, as he commented on the classic phrase of the prophet Isaiah: He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness (zedaqah) but, behold, a cry (ze‘aqah) (Isa. 5:7).29 The absorption of the language and history of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Christian communities between the fourth and sixth centuries slowly but surely added a rougher and more assertive texture to the Christian discourse on poverty. The poor were not simply others—creatures who trembled on the margins of society, asking to be saved by the wealthy. Like the poor of Israel, they were also brothers. They had the right to “cry out” for justice in the face of oppressors along with all other members of the “people of God.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD

“At the same time, radical Pelagian tracts, such as the de divitiis—the relentlessly argued “Treatise on Riches”—had advocated the total renunciation of property by the rich.27 The author of this tract extended his plea for total renunciation to include a consequential denunciation of the existence of wealth in the first place: Tolle divitem et pauperem non invenies (Get rid of the rich and you will find no poor) was one of his many provocative slogans.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity

“If you stand in a forest long enough, eventually
something will fall on you.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Bardaisan’s treatise was appropriately named The Book of the Laws of Countries.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000

“world was not merely a gallery of theories. It drove serious endeavors at self-amendment. But from then on they differed. Foucault’s notion of the “self” was more narrow than that of Hadot. It lacked the cosmic dimension that the ancient sages took for granted. In his critique of Foucault, Hadot insisted that, for ancient philosophers, “care of the self” was never an end in itself. Simply to enjoy the pleasure of having established a carefully constructed lifestyle was not enough: that was mere dandyism—the creation of an eccentric persona. Rather, the soul was groomed so as to go beyond itself, to experience the leap of joy that came with realizing that it was somehow part of the supreme order and beauty of the universe.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“A great scholar of Gaul and of the “barbarian” side of the Rhine frontier – John Drinkwater – has recently provided a cogent answer. He argues that emperor, military, and civilian populations alike needed the idea of a “barbarian threat” to justify their own existence. The threat of invasion justified high rates of taxation. It justified the splendid palaces and cities ringed with high walls which overlooked the Rhine and the Danube, from the North Sea to the Black Sea. It gave a raison d’être to a powerful and well-paid military class.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000

“in pagan circles in the age of the Antonines, took on a new valence among Christians. He showed how Christian writings of the third and fourth centuries expressed new forms of experience not to be found among pagans. Most scholars saw Christian advocacy of virginity as no more than the end result of a progressive tightening of the screws of prohibitions on sexual activity, with total rejection of sex as the ultimate form of repression. Foucault did not see it this way. He pointed out how the idea and practice of virginity appeared in a new light in Christian circles, freighted with significantly different, emancipatory meanings.9”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“The robot's body may have been hard and mechanical, but it was also strong and safe.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Doktorzy skwapliwie dodawali jeszcze jedną, znamienną przestrogę dla małżonka. Udany stosunek jest aktem konwulsyjnym, w swych przyczynach i skutkach fizycznych niewiele się różniącym od nagłego wybuchu wściekłości. Wykazuje on okropne podobieństwo do ataku choroby; orgazm jest małą epilepsją. Czy usta epileptyka również nie pienią się tą samą pełną bąbli, białawą krwią, co penis ? Mamy do czynienia z dżentelmenami, których chód powinien być miarowy, gestykulacja opanowana, i którym Plutarch we “Wskazówkach o zachowywaniu zdrowia” radził, by dbali o zdrowie, odczytując głośno harmonijnie ułożone deklamacyjne kompozycje oraz unikając wszelkich “namiętnych i konwulsyjnych krzyków ” . Niezbyt nas zaskakuje to, że młodej parze radzono przystępować z należytą ostrożnością do ” najświętszego ze wszystkich siewów ”
Troska o właściwe zachowanie i wiedza medyczna zbiegały się w kwestii stosunku płciowego. Rozognione ciało było kruchym naczyniem, z którego energia witalna mogła wyciec. Jego żar, jeśli miał być trwały, należało starannie otamować. Częsta aktywność seksualna budziła dezaprobatę. Obniżała płodność męskiego nasienia, a stąd również szanse ojca na potomstwo. Na skutek wytrysku wydatnie zmniejszała się ilość ciepła podtrzymującego energię mężczyzny. ” Obsesyjnie męska moralność “, przez długi czas pospolita w świecie grecko-rzymskim, miała oparcie w podręcznikach medycznych. Kochanek i pantoflarz nie tylko popadali w podejrzaną emocjonalną zależność od kobiety; w sensie fizjologicznym groziło im ” zniewieścienie” wskutek stopniowej utraty ciepła. Bardzo sugestywny przesąd o “utracie tchnienia życiowego” legł u podstaw wielu form późnoklasycznego stosunku do męskiego ciała. Jest on jednym z licznych wyobrażeń, które męską wstrzemięźliwość silnie zakorzeniły w ludowej mądrości świata, w jakim już niebawem miał być głoszony chrześcijański celibat. Najbardziej męski był mężczyzna, który zatrzymywał w sobie najwięcej tchnienia życiowego- to znaczy ten, który tracił niewiele( albo nie tracił wcale) nasienia. Stąd ambiwalencja towarzysząca postaci młodzieńca skastrowanego już po pokwitaniu, jak samootrzebiający się wyznawcy Attisa. W pełni dorosły mężczyzna, który sam siebie czynił eunuchem, starannie podwiązując sobie jądra, nie osuwał się bynajmniej w preseksualną amorficzność, jak to się działo z okastrowanymi w chłopięctwie, lecz stawał się asporos, nie trwoniącym życiowego żaru z innymi. Galen uważał, że gdyby sportowców-olimpijczyków kastrować w sposób nie naruszający ich zasobów ciepła, to byliby oni silniejsi. Zgadzał się z tym Soranus: ” Mężczyźni zachowujący czystości są silniejsi i lepsi od innych, i lepsze im dopisuje zdrowie”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity

“I'll just say that on any given day, Roz might have to be a mechanic or a veterinarian or a gardener or a plumber or a cleaner or a landscaper or an electrician, or all of the above. Farm life kept Rox very busy indeed.”
― Peter Brown, Wild Robot Series 2 Books Collection Set By Peter Brown

“So I had to explain myself by becoming a historian of myself”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“This view of Tertullian should not be confused with the tradition of “Christian mortalism” that has survived in some circles up to today. In “Christian mortalism,” the soul of the dead person is believed to be unconscious—as good as dead—until awakened again at the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. For Tertullian, the souls of the departed never lapsed into total unconsciousness. Rather, they lived a suspended, interim existence, waiting for the next great act in the drama of God’s salvation to begin:”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity

“Tal vez sea defectuosa, tal vez todo lo que he experimentado es el
resultado de una falla. Pero si es así, ¡qué hermosa falla! Tengo
mis propios pensamientos y sentimientos. Me hice una vida.”
― Peter Brown

“It struck me, even at the time, that the basic hope of the conference was a very scholarly one. Many of the contributions and lectures were motivated by a touching faith in the collective memory of Christianity. They believed that the writings of the age of the Fathers could be sifted by scholars in such a way as to bring healing to the present. Understanding the Patristic age was like a remedium (to use a late Roman Latin term). A remedium was a homeopathic poultice—like a modern medical patch—which was thought to work slowly, and with almost occult power, to heal: to redress deep-seated imbalances; to fortify good humors; to smooth away the cramps and to soften the hard constrictions that wracked the body. It was hoped that a remedium could be concocted, from our renewed and ever-deeper knowledge of Patristic Christianity, that could be pressed against the fevered body of the church in our own times.”
― Peter Brown, Journeys of the Mind: A Life in History

“Do you know who enjoyed their conversations most of all? Our robot Roz. The protective mother was never far away, and she felt something like amusement at the silly conversations she overheard, and she felt something like happiness that her son had made such a good friend.”
― Peter Brown

“of the many Christianities of this time. For the entire period from 200 to 1000, Christianity remained predominantly a religion of Asia and of northern Africa. Though well established in parts of the western Mediterranean (and not least in large cities such as Rome and Carthage) Christianity spread slowly throughout the non-Mediterranean West. What we now call a distinctively “European” Christianity was unthinkable in the year 500 A.D. Even the notion of “Europe” itself only took on its modern meaning in around the year 650 A.D. (as we will see at the end of chapter 11). By the year 1000 A.D., what could be called a “European” Christianity had only recently been established, with the conversion of Germany, of parts of Eastern Europe, and of Scandinavia.”
― Peter R.L. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000

“Clearly, the animals were experts at survival.
Clearly, the robot was not.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“The primary division of society was not that between rich and poor but between citizens and non-citizens. The benefactors of cities gave to their “fellow citizens” and never to the poor. Some of these citizens might well be poor, but their poverty in itself entitled them to nothing. They received entertainment, public comforts (such as great bathhouses), and (in many cities) considerable doles of food. But they did not receive them on the basis of need. They received them because they were members of a privileged group.”
― Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD

“You'll never be the perfect mother, so just do the best you can.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot