Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

Survival is based on action, not faith, and the people themselves have the power to shape God.

We are born Not with purpose, But with potential.

leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war.

It seems inevitable that people who can’t read are going to lean more toward judging candidates on the way they look and sound than on what they claim they stand for.

Interesting that they fear Edward Jay Smith’s supposed incompetence more than they fear Jarret’s obvious tyranny.

At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease.

As a country, we’ve given up our birthright for even less than bread and pottage. We’ve given it up for nothing—although I’m sure some people somewhere are richer now.

How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?

It shouldn’t be so easy to nudge people toward what might be their own destruction.

They look at us with unmistakable hatred, disgust, and contempt, and they insist that it’s love that they feel.

We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that’s the way things are. That’s the way things always have been.”