The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)

by Liu Cixin

“It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper?”

Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.

Ten thousand times the web could be destroyed, and ten thousand times the spider would rebuild it. There was neither annoyance nor despair, nor any delight, just as it had been for a billion years.

“But you can’t simply not care. Humanity will be gone in four hundred years!” “Hmph. You and I will be gone in forty-odd years.”

“My grand family line will die out with me.”

you’ve got a long way to go. I say that because I can still easily understand you, and being understandable to me means that your mind is still too simple, not subtle enough. On the day I can no longer read you or figure you out, but you can easily understand me, that’s when you’ll finally have grown up.”

The pinnacle of this is to make them not notice you at all, as if you don’t exist until the moment right before they die at your hands.”

“In my experience, any thinking is liable to go off the rails. You should just go to sleep.”

“When twilight fades, you can see the stars. When dawn fades, all that’s left is…” “All that’s left is the harsh light of reality.”

The doctor smiled tolerantly. “Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!” “Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?” “Is that even a question?” “Sure. For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up. It’s as simple as that.

Don’t try to forget about her. It won’t work. But as time passes, her influence on your life will decrease. And you’re actually quite lucky. Whether or not she really exists, you’re fortunate to be in love.”

‘In this war lies the fate of the country, but what does it matter next to individual rights and freedoms?

his mind returned to a sentence from a suicide note from a kamikaze pilot to his mother that he had seen in the exhibit: Mom, I’m going to be a firefly.

“Great. Help me find a person. A woman in her early twenties. This is part of the plan.” “Nationality? Name? Address?” “None. The possibility that she even exists in the world is low.” Shi Qiang looked at him, and after a few seconds said, “You dreamed her?” Luo Ji nodded. “Daydreams, too.”

It’s nice not knowing.” “Why?” “Once you know, the world turns narrow.”

‘Three things are unfilial, and having no issue is the greatest.’

people who are sensitive to beauty are good by nature, and if they’re not good, then they can’t appreciate beauty.”

Going out into the world after graduation, I was like a fish swimming into the sea, where the water was muddy and I couldn’t see anything at all. I wanted to swim to clearer waters, but all that swimming got tiring.…

do you know what the greatest expression of regard for a race or civilization is?” “No, what?” “Annihilation. That’s the highest respect a civilization can receive. They would only feel threatened by a civilization they truly respect.”

My love, wait for me at doomsday

If there really is a God, then it’s right to believe in him. If there isn’t, then we don’t have anything to lose.”

what do you want a tombstone for? Tombstones are meant for people to see. By then, there won’t be any people left.”

“There’s nothing strange about that,” Rey Diaz said. He sat next to the window, enjoying the sunlight shining in from the outside. “Right now, the greatest obstacle to humanity’s survival comes from itself.”

He was won over by their expressions, because he knew that the eyes of ordinary people were the best reflection of the level of civilization in a time and place.

She extended her hand, and he saw that, although the object she held in it had changed quite a bit, it was still recognizably a pistol. “If you really find that I have defeatist thinking and Escapist goals, you may use this to kill me.”

Think about what’s more important: the child dying of starvation in your arms, or the continuation of human civilization?

“It’s called civilization immunity. It means that when the world has suffered a serious illness, it triggers civilization’s immune system, so that something like the early Crisis Era won’t happen again. Humanism comes first, and perpetuating civilization comes second.

“Emancipation of human nature inevitably brings with it scientific and technological progress.”

‘Make time for life, or life won’t make time.’

Make time for civilization, make time for life.

I believed in what Goethe said: ‘If I love you, what business is it of yours?’

“If I destroy you, what business is it of yours?”

the entire universe endured so long as one atom remained.

“What’s the point of fretting?” Shi Qiang shook his head. “No one can do anything about it, at any rate. And until it punches through the Earth, we’ve still got to live, right?” “That’s right. Worrying is pointless.

‘If I don’t go to hell, who will?’

The past was like a handful of sand you thought you were squeezing tightly, but which had already run out through the cracks between your fingers. Memory was a river that had run dry long ago, leaving only scattered gravel in a lifeless riverbed. He had lived life always looking out for the next thing, and whenever he had gained, he had also lost, leaving him with little in the end.

First, survival is the primary need of civilization. Second, civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.”

In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out.

Not being able to save the world isn’t your fault, but giving the world hope only to shatter it again is an unforgiveable sin.

Now he saw only the stars and the headstones, the two greatest symbols of eternity.

Everyone in that world was god; all had the ability to instantaneously count and remember every grain of sand in the desert; all were able to string together stars into a crystal necklace to hang around a lover’s neck.… Is this love?

The sun will set soon. Isn’t your child afraid? “Of course she’s not afraid. She knows that the sun will rise again tomorrow.”