You shall see in society, numbers of discontented men, who complain that the doors of preferment are closed upon them; that prejudices stand in their way; that a hard measure is dealt to them; that with equal merit as others, they meet an
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“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!”
― The Portable Emerson
― The Portable Emerson
“Apathy on the individual level translates into insanity at the mass level”,”
― Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
― Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern
“The name is Harry Madison, not Mad Harrison!” “I’m sorry?” the computerized desketary said, with exactly the right interrogative inflection; it was one of IBM’s ultra-advanced models with fully personalized vocal communication, and abode by articles of faith in its mechanical existence. One of them stated that hospital staff alone in a room who uttered audible words desired a reply. This did not apply to patients.”
― The Jagged Orbit
― The Jagged Orbit
“I was in a book store nearby. Harlan had wanted to commit one of his favorite stunts, which was to compose a story in the window of a book store carrying his books. Unfortunately, when Attila had sacked Metz in the fifth century, he had apparently done something to book store fronts, because there were no book stores which had the sort of front windows, as American book stores have, for displaying authors in the act of composition. Harlan had to take his act to a local newspaper office, where people apparently took him for an employee. He said he was asked to notarize a document, or something like that. He was a little disappointed.”
― On Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy
― On Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy
“Carl smiled at me. He really did smile, but it didn’t make me want to smile back. “A policeman asking questions,” he said in the level tone he had used before, “has a different effect on different people. If you have a country like this one and you are innocent of crime, all the people of your country are saying it with you when you answer the questions. That is true even when you are away from home—especially when you are away from home. But Tina and I have no country at all. The country we had once, it is no longer a country, it is just a place to wait to die, only if we are sent back there we will not have to wait. Two people alone cannot answer a policeman’s questions anywhere in the world. It takes a whole country to speak to a policeman, and Tina and I—we do not have one.”
― Triple Jeopardy
― Triple Jeopardy
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