TBeholder > TBeholder's Quotes

“He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions

“I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Under The Deodars

“Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Complete Verse

“We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the worst kind of cowardice.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

“Ye've a furtive look in your eye - a furtive, sneakin', poachin' look in your eye, that 'ud ruin the reputation of an archangel!”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Stalky and Co.

“The toad beneath the harrow knows
Where every separate tooth-point goes ;
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Complete Verse

“Well-meanin' man. Did it all for the best." Stalky curled gracefully round the stair-rail. "Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left boot.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Stalky and Co.

“He has oppressed Beetle, M'Turk, and me, privatim et seriatim, one by one, as he could catch us. But now he has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of these - these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry "Capivi!"'
Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Stalky and Co.

“Borrow trouble for yourself, if that`s your nature, but don`t lend it to your neighbors.”
― Rudyard Kipling

“Every man is entitled to his own religious opinions; but no man – least of all a junior – has a right to thrust these down other men’s throats.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills

“frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal “honor” and court etiquette.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Weak emperors mean strong viceroys. ”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“It isn’t just you. It’s the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin’s idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject—written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don’t you see that there’s something wrong with that?”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“And Mallow laughed joyously. "You've missed, Sutt, missed as badly as the Commdor himself. You've missed everything, and understood nothing. The Empire has always been a realm of colossal resources. They've calculated everything in planets, in stellar systems, in whole sectors of the Galaxy. Their generators are gigantic because they thought in gigantic fashion.

"But we,—we, our little Foundation, our single world almost without metallic resources,—have had to work with brute economy. Our generators have had to be the size of our thumb, because it was all the metal we could afford. We had to develop new techniques and new methods,—techniques and methods the Empire can't follow because they have degenerated past the stage where they can make any vital scientific advance.

"With all their nuclear shields, large enough to protect a ship, a city, an entire world; hey could never build one to protect a single man. To supply light and heat to a city, they have motors six stories high,—I saw them—where ours could fit into this room. And when I told one of their nuclear specialists that a lead container the size of a walnut contained a nuclear generator, he almost choked with indignation on the spot.

"Why, they don't even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from generation to generation automatically and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be helpless if a single D-tube in all that vast structure burnt out.

"The whole war is a battle between these two systems; between the Empire and the Foundation; between the big and the little. To seize control of a world, they bribe with immense ships that can make war, but lack all economic significance. We, on the other hand, bribe with little things, useless in war, but vital to prosperity and profits.

"A king, or a Commdor, will take the ships and even make war. Arbitrary rulers throughout history have bartered their subjects' welfare for what they consider honor, and glory, and conquest. But it's still the little things in life that count—and Asper Argo won't stand up against the economic depression that will sweep all Korell in two or three years.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“What do you require to exchange your ideas for mine?” “You think my convictions are for sale?” “Why not?” came the cold response. “Isn’t that your business, buying and selling?” “Only at a profit,” said Mallow,”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul.”
― Glen Cook, The Black Company

“Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.”
― Glen Cook, The Black Company

“You who come after me, scribbling these Annals, by now realize that I shy off portraying the whole truth about our band of blackguards. You know they are vicious, violent, and ignorant. They are complete barbarians, living out their cruelest fantasies, their behavior tempered only by the presence of a few decent men. I do not often show that side because these men are my brethren, my family, and I was taught young not to speak ill of kin. The old lessons die hardest.”
― Glen Cook, The Black Company

“Ah, the smell of mystery and dark doings, of skulduggery and revenge. The meat of a good tale.”
― Glen Cook, The Black Company

“Back to the company. Back to business. Back to the parade of years. Back to the annals. Back to fear.”
― Glen Cook, The Black Company

“Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Sanity is not statistical.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
― George Orwell, 1984