samuel upston

“And a violet-coloured gas told him that this part of space was outside what he had called infinity. The gas had not heard of planets and organisms before, but identified Kuranes merely as one from the infinity where matter, energy, and gravitation exist.”
― H.P Lovecraft

“I don’t understand your government, your Empire, anything. The more I find out, the more I realize that I don’t know what’s going on.”
“How fortunate that you have discovered the way to wisdom,"

“Duncan, have I not told you that when you think you know something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning?”
― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

“I don’t remember how much time passed between my saying, “It’s nothing,” and someone in that other group of soldiers opening fire, but it was likely less than ten seconds. And I don’t know why they did it. But I know that .50 caliber machine-gun rounds tore into the small white car and tore into the old man and the old woman until the small white car stopped moving and the old man and the old woman were both dead. So it goes. They have been dying in my mind every day for the last fourteen years. I suspect they will do so until I’ve exhausted my own days on this earth. This is my moment trapped in amber.

I am now thirty-eight years old. I live in a rented house in Pittsboro, North Carolina, with my wife, my two daughters, and my dog. I try to be kind. I try not to hurt people. And though I have just told you all the things I know with certainty about that day in September in Tal Afar, Iraq, when I was twenty-four, I’m still not sure what it means. I don’t know if my being there in that place and at that time makes me a bad person, but on most days I think it means I do not get to claim to be a good one.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five

“Stilgar,” Paul said, “you urgently need a sense of balance which can come only from an understanding of long-term effects. What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.”
“Genghis … Khan? Was he of the Sardaukar, m’Lord?”
“Oh, long before that. He killed … perhaps four million.”
“He must’ve had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or …”
“He didn’t kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There’s another emperor I want you to note in passing—a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.”
“Killed … by his legions?” Stilgar asked.
“Yes.”
“Not very impressive statistics, m’Lord.”
“Very good, Stil.” Paul glanced at the reels in Korba’s hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. “Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I’ve wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since—”
“Unbelievers!” Korba protested. “Unbelievers all!”
“No,” Paul said. “Believers.”
“My Liege makes a joke,” Korba said, voice trembling. “The Jihad has brought ten thousand worlds into the shining light of—”
“Into the darkness,” Paul said. “We’ll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad’Dib’s Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this.” A barking laugh erupted from his throat.
“What amuses Muad’Dib?” Stilgar asked.
“I am not amused. I merely had a sudden vision of the Emperor Hitler saying something similar. No doubt he did.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah