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“... when I saw any of those kinds of beauty I knew I was alive, and not just in the sense that when I hit my thumb with a hammer I knew I was alive, but rather in the sense that I was partaking of something--something was passing through me that it was in my nature to be a part of.”
― Anathem
― Anathem
“Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.”
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―
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bomc,' I said. 'We have a protractor.'
Okay, I'll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.”
― Anathem
Okay, I'll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler and a piece of string.”
― Anathem
“Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.”
― Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State
― Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State
“Then be wise about it. There are two kinds of important men, Shallan. There are those who, when the boulder of time rolls toward them, stand up in front of it and hold out their hands. All their lives, they've been told how great they are. They assume the word itself will bend to their whims as their nurse did when fetching them a fresh cup of milk.
Those men end up squished.
Other men stand to the side when the boulder of time passes, but are quick to say, 'See what I did! I made the boulder roll there. Don't make me do it again!'
These men end up getting everyone else squished."
"Is there not a third type of person?"
"There is, but they are oh so rare. These know they can't stop the boulder. So they walk beside it, study it, and bide their time. Then they shove it-ever so slightly- to create a deviation in its path.
These are the men who actually change the world. And they terrify me. For men never see as far as they think they do.”
― Oathbringer
Those men end up squished.
Other men stand to the side when the boulder of time passes, but are quick to say, 'See what I did! I made the boulder roll there. Don't make me do it again!'
These men end up getting everyone else squished."
"Is there not a third type of person?"
"There is, but they are oh so rare. These know they can't stop the boulder. So they walk beside it, study it, and bide their time. Then they shove it-ever so slightly- to create a deviation in its path.
These are the men who actually change the world. And they terrify me. For men never see as far as they think they do.”
― Oathbringer
Douglas’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Douglas’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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82 friends
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