Sam Kalwas > Sam's Quotes

“And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose— well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes—make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Oh, what fun it would be", he thought, "if one didn't have to think about happiness.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“To light a candle is to cast a shadow...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true name, knowing its being: which is more than its use. What, after all, is the use of you? or of myself? Is Gont Mountain useful, or the Open Sea?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea