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| 401 | The only part of an argument that really matters is what we think of the people arguing. X claims a, Y claims b. They make arguments to support their claims, with any number of points. But when their listeners remember the discussion, what matters is simply that X believes a and Y believes b. People then form their judgment on what they think of X and Y. | |
| 402 | The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality - it's our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see. | |
| 403 | The point is taken.... Yes - if the words of the song justify the behavior they wish to practice but have been taught not to, they will wish to believe those words. From there, it is only a very small step to persuade oneself that they are true.
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| 404 | The power cable generated an electrical field and confused their tiny metal minds. You might almost say they've had a complete metal breakdown. | |
| 405 | The problem with Huck is that she's right just often enough to let her think it's a law of nature. | |
| 406 | The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. | |
| 407 | The shape of the government they made reflects the distrust these groups had for each other. | |
| 408 | The TARDIS, when working properly, is capable of many amazing things.
Not unlike myself. | |
| 409 | The teacher who does not learn from his students does not teach. The student who sneers at his teacher's true knowledge is like one who chooses unripe grapes and scorns the sweet fruit of the vine which has been allowed to ripen in it's own time. | |
| 410 | The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession. | |
| 411 | The thought of death held no terror for Kisada. Novice warriors lost nerve in battle for fear of life and limb. They came ready to kill, but never considered that they might die. Overcautious, they often lost their lives, dying because they were not willing to risk themselves completely. | |
| 412 | The trouble with computers, of course, is that they are very sophisticated idiots. | |
| 413 | The trouble with computers, of course, is that they're very sophisticated idiots. | |
| 414 | The trouble with time travel is, one never seems to find the time. | |
| 415 | The truth is, it's easier to see the justice in people you deem to be like you, and far easier to find the wrong in those who differ. | |
| 416 | The truth of a situation most often turns out to be that one with the simplest explanation. | |
| 417 | The tyrant fears the laugh more than the assassin’s bullet. | |
| 418 | The universe is at war, Doctor. Name one planet whose history is not littered with atrocities and ambition for empire. It is a universal way of life. | |
| 419 | The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment. | |
| 420 | The Wizard's Fourth Rule, he called it. He said that there was magic in forgiveness, in the Fourth Rule. Magic to heal. In the forgiveness you grant, and more so in the forgiveness you receive. | |
| 421 | The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. | |
| 422 | The young idiots of today often rely too heavily on TV for diversionary info and enjoyment instead of reading. But if we want to change our world, we're going to have to take a tip from the Cable Guy: Kill that baby sitter and then pick up a good book. | |
| 423 | There are more miracles than we realize, then, for they are all about us, and need not be great and mighty. Grace comes to all who are open to it; miracles hap in places far removed from fame. 'Tis only the few that catch the eye of mighty folk that do astound us all.
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| 424 | There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought. | |
| 425 | There are worlds out there were the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on Ace we've got work to do. | |
| 426 | There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. | |
| 427 | There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth. | |
| 428 | There is no greater value than life - and that's what you partially recognize by your confused notion of granting mercy. Their conscious, deliberate act of murder takes the irreplaceable value of life from another. A murderer, by his own choice to kill, forfeits the right to his own life. Mercy for such evil is nothing short of excusing it and thus allowing evil to prevail - it codifies the taking of innocent life by not making the murderer forfeit their own guilty life. | |
| 429 | There is no indignity in being afraid to die, but there is a terrible shame in being afraid to live. | |
| 430 | There is no law that cannot be twisted against its original purpose... no law that the powerful cannot corrupt to misuse - but that corruption can be purged, the twists unwound. Without the law, everyone is a victim sooner or later. If we defend the law; it will protect the weak more often than not. | |
| 431 | There was an interesting thing about stories, he had realized. Tell people a truth in plain words, and they were more than likely to forget it amidst the thoughts and cares of their daily lives. But clothing that same truth in a story allowed people to uncover it for themselves, and having done so, they might keep it in their hearts. | |
| 432 | There was something here, he thought, that nearly belonged to the gods. Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflects the landscape. And yet... and yet.
Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from - hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreampt up took them further in. He was fascinated. | |
| 433 | There will be people like this in any culture, for every society is made of individuals. You must learn this. Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail. | |
| 434 | There would be trouble enough, but a man is born to trouble, and it is best to meet it when it comes and not lose sleep until it does. | |
| 435 | There’s a difference between thinking an action is wise and doing it. | |
| 436 | Therefore, parent of he that liveth in the God-blessed testosterone fog, train your son that he is not free to use, abuse, abandon, desert, ignore, overlook, disregard, forget, avoid, mistreat or neglect that which gets placed under his care; and if, if he does, he is to have his backside whupped. | |
| 437 | There's a saying that when guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns. | |
| 438 | There's more to being a woman than what happens with a man in bed, believe me. You should learn that. What you can give a man in bed he can get from any street woman, what he wants from a wife is that, but much more. He wants tenderness, understanding, the feeling of working together for something.
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| 439 | There's no job so simple it can't get messy if you don't pay attention to it. | |
| 440 | There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. | |
| 441 | There's nothing quite so invigorating, so freeing, as piloting a gasoline-powered vehicle along an open road. Years from now, when all the vehicles are electric, when tens of millions of acres of Earth’s surface have been destroyed by open-pit mining for the enormous quantities of lithium and cobalt and nickel and copper required for EVs, when thousands of new landfills have been crammed full of batteries that can't be recycled and are leaking horrifying toxins into the water table, when thousands of square miles of windmills have made extinct hundreds of species of birds with disastrous environmental effects, I will still - always, always - remember this special and exhilarating night... | |
| 442 | These headlines are written often at the insistence of uneducated circulation managers, who know nothing except how to husle sheets, and insist on a bigger headline and a more startling shock than the opposition has. | |
| 443 | They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams - and still calls for more. | |
| 444 | They gave me a terrible handicap with my peers. At least when I was a teenager. I don't mean the name. They deprived me of the definitive adolescent experience - thinking my parents didn't love me. Believing they didn't understand me. | |
| 445 | They judge a man out here by his honesty and his courage, and it's right they should. Most ways a man can go in this country he goes into danger, so you want a man alongside you who has guts. You don't want to start a wagon across the trails with a coward who'll quit the first time you run into trouble... he'll get you killed.
And if you're doing business out here, a man's word has to be good. We don't have lawyers and courts to decide, and we don't have a lot of legal nonsense to go through. If I buy cattle from a man and he tells me he's got ten thousand head, there'd better be ten thousand head... but there will be. No need to count 'em.
That's why if a man is called a coward or a liar it's a shooting matter. Nobody wants to associate or do business with either. Man can't afford to let folks call him either one. | |
| 446 | They never experienced disappointment. They have just had a wonderfully smooth life. What you've done, you have handicapped that boy for the rest of his life. He will be a weak, soft, ineffective man. | |
| 447 | They're all actors, you see, and can never quite remember when they're offstage. There's an audience available, so every one of them must have his or her say. | |
| 448 | Things are always changing in your world. Your lives are so short there is no continuity. Just as soon as one of you begins to accomplish a measurable task, he dies, and the next generation undoes all he worked for. Or, worse, they ignore the lessons he learned and make the same mistakes over again. I am not afraid that the world will pass me by while I sit here in this prison your shugenja conjured.... I know that in a thousand years, when this spell finally fades away, you humans will still be making the same mistakes you are today, guarding the same wall and fighting the same feuds. | |
| 449 | Think about me when you're living your life, one day after another, all in a neat pattern. Think about the homeless traveller in his old police box, his days like crazy paving. | |
| 450 | Thinking is not always… comforting. It is always good, but not always comforting. | |