Цветозар

“It is not enough to read for entertainment—we also must read to learn. This life, and that of our journey in the book, is but a microcosm of our true one. It also beseeches the writer as he reminds himself that there must be a purpose. To entertain mindlessly is to rob the reader, the watcher, the listener. Such complicity in shallowness is as harmful as wilful violence. In consciousness there is profound obligation.”
― Mike Woods, Sleight of Hand: Chaos, Authorship & Humanity in the Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Of all the weapons we turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one's own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“Don't be so foolish to believe empires are built on stone. They're on bamboo stilts at best.”
― Exurb1a, The Bridge to Lucy Dunne

“Many political words are similarly abused. The word fascism now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.”
― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language