Aidan Scott > Aidan's Quotes

“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying `Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable -- this is Marcos.”
― Subcomandante Marcos

“4 of us, and 2000 of them. Piss-poor odds. For them.”
― Eric Nylund, The Fall of Reach

“But it will be harder for you if you remember. Love is always harder. Love means weathering blows for another’s sake and not counting them. Love is loss of self, loss of other, and faith in the death of loss.”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires

“Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake, Ensign?”
The entire bridge had gone deathly still. Colclazure swallowed again, his face starting to go pale. “No, sir.”
“Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”
― Timothy Zahn, Heir to the Empire

“The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.”
― Tanith Lee, Delusion's Master

“Then why do you want to know?"

"Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions-that is, to name them and”
― Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.
- Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual”
― Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

“A robber who justified his theft by saying that he really helped his victims, by his spending giving a boost to retail trade, would find few converts; but when this theory is clothed in Keynesian equations and impressive references to the “multiplier effect,” it unfortunately carries more conviction.”
― Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State

“Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on.”
― China Miéville, Embassytown

“With a [democratic] government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even the supreme power. The distinction between the rulers and the ruled as well as the class consciousness of the ruled become blurred. The illusion even arises that the distinction no longer exists: that with a public government no one is ruled by anyone, but everyone instead rules himself. Accordingly, public resistance against government power is systematically weakened. While exploitation and expropriation before might have appeared plainly oppressive and evil to the public, they seem much less so, mankind being what it is, once anyone may freely enter the ranks of those who are at the receiving end. Consequently, [exploitation will increase], whether openly in the form of higher taxes or discretely as increased governmental money “creation” (inflation) or legislative regulation.”
― Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed

“Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses

“Everything that occurs in the world, in every epoch, has something that corresponds to it in ancient times.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses

“For a Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy. So that if the founder of a State should establish any one of these three forms of Government, he establishes it for a short time only, since no precaution he may take can prevent it from sliding into its contrary, by reason of the close resemblance which, in this case, the virtue bears to the vice.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”
― Sun-Tzu, A Arte da Guerra

“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“God Himself is the rule and mode of virtue. Our faith is measured by divine truth, our hope by the greatness of His power and faithful affection, our charity by His goodness. His truth, power and goodness outreach any measure of reason. We can certainly never believe, trust or love God more than, or even as much as, we should. Extravagance is impossible. Here is no virtuous moderation, no measurable mean; the more extreme our activity, the better we are.”
― St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica