“Why should the Prophet Muhammad get a whole visit from an archangel? Why should Saul get to see the literal light of heaven on the road to Damascus? Of course it would be easy to establish bedrock faith after such clear-cut revelation. How was it fair to celebrate those guys for faith that wasn’t faith at all, that was just obedience to what they plainly observed to be true? And what sense did it make to punish the rest of humanity who had never been privy to such explicit revelation?”
― Martyr!
― Martyr!
“Things change, even if you want them to stay the same. At the same time, you can try to change, but you will still remain the same.”
― What You Are Looking for Is in the Library
― What You Are Looking for Is in the Library
“Maybe it's because we could pass along science. You wrote a fact in a book and there it sat until someone born five hundred years later improved it. Refined it, implemented it more usefully. Easy. You couldn't do that with soul-learning. We all started from zero. From less than zero, actually. We started whiny, without grace. Obsessed only with our own needing. And the dead couldn't teach us anything about that. No facts or tables or proofs. You just had to live and suffer and then teach our kids to do the same.”
― Martyr!
― Martyr!
“What was there to complain about? A murdered wife? A sore back? The wrong grade copper? Living happened till it didn't. There was no choice in it. To say no to a new day would be unthinkable. So each morning you said yes, then stepped into the consequence.”
― Martyr!
― Martyr!
“We didn’t know how to help him because we lacked the imagination needed to diagnose the problems.”
― A Little Life
― A Little Life
Icaca’s 2025 Year in Books
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