TopBob > TopBob's Quotes

“All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“The Earthlings behaved at all times as though there were a big eye in the sky—as though that big eye were ravenous for entertainment.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“The condition of man . . . is a condition of war of everyone against everyone”
― Thomas Hobbes

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's
why.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

“Too excited to be genuinely happy”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

“In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia

“Out- out are the lights- out all! And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“I try all things, I achieve what I can.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Ignorance is the parent of fear”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
― George Orwell, 1984

“To die hating them, that was freedom.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do not exist.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“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

“Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson–paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you?”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World