Alex

“Trust,” the young man said. “Yes. But against— Against them?— Gelluk’s gone. Maybe Losen will fall now. Will it make any difference? Will the slaves go free? Will beggars eat? Will justice be done? I think there’s an evil in us, in humankind. Trust denies it. Leaps across it. Leaps the chasm. But it’s there. And everything we do finally serves evil, because that’s what we are. Greed and cruelty. I look at the world, at the forests and the mountain here, the sky, and it’s all right, as it should be. But we aren’t. People aren’t. We’re wrong. We do wrong. No animal does wrong. How could they? But we can, and we do. And we never stop.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea

“I want to find a peaceful, easy way to just muddle through the rest of my life.”
― Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem

“The human race is an evil species. Human civilization has committed unforgivable crimes against the Earth and must be punished.”
― Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem

“He stopped, for saying the truth aloud was unendurable. It was not shame that stopped him, but fear, the same fear. He knew now why this tranquil life in sea and sunlight on the rafts seemed to him like an afterlife or a dream, unreal. It was because he knew in his heart that reality was empty: without life or warmth or color or sound: without meaning. There were no heights or depths. All this lovely play of form and light and color on the sea and in the eyes of men, was no more than that: a playing of illusions on the shallow void.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore