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History is the long shadow cast by the past upon the future. Shadows, by nature, lack details.
Never underestimate the power of the need to appear better than their peers to motivate people,
‘Words and actions must be read under the guiding light of intent.’ ” Kuni sighed. “Perspective is everything.
was the fate of the poor to toil and endure,
memory was a lump of wax that was reshaped by the knife of consciousness with each recollection, and as Mimi grew up and changed, the way she remembered the stories also changed.
Sometimes we swapped the same story back and forth, changing it in each retelling, the way love is shaped and crafted and polished and built up by two pairs of hands in a space of their own.
There aren’t always answers, only stories.”
“True courage is to insist on seeing when all around you is darkness.”
“The reality of the universe must be experienced, not constructed
‘Proper rituals channel proper thoughts,’ ”
The only duty any child owes to her parent is to live a life that is true to her nature.”
Engineering is the art of solving problems by combining existing machines into new machines, and harnessing the effects of the sub-machines to accomplish a novel effect.
proper manners, like good handwriting, will soothe the minds of others so that they are more receptive to your ideas.”
intent drives action, action can also drive intent. By acting morally, one becomes moral.”
To live life gracefully is to accept it, and find joy within each passing moment.
“All men are fellows before the bleak, endless sea and the fiery, explosive volcanoes,”
“Each fresh wave coming to land from the sea is brash, bold, radical, and wild like a newborn idea; the wave is worn down by the unyielding reality of the hard land and eventually dissipates, exhausted, to be replaced by the next wave in an apparently futile endeavor. Yet the cumulative efforts of such successive surges, over generations and eons, carved the coastline
real friend is a mirror that reflects the truth back to us.”
“Actions do not have meaning by themselves,” said Cano. “All that matters is the perspective in which they are seen.
“Image is everything in the arts of war and politics,”
“Even if a knife has injured you in the past, it’s still a good knife if you wield it right.”
What courage it took for the starving and the poor to continue the mere act of existence, of survival, of endurance. Such quiet acts of heroism were not celebrated, and yet they made up the foundation of civilization, far more than all the honorable sentiments of the Ano sages and the pretty words of the nobles.
The universe is knowable. Patterns could be discerned and made useful.
We’re always the heroes of our own stories.”
“Though all life is an experiment, there are moments of purity of purpose that demand no justification.
Our lives are but brief respites between stormy veils cast over the eternal unknown, and we must be guided in our deeds by the inner compass of our will, not what others may think of us.
what is destiny but accumulated chance made into a story in retrospect?”
None of us is born knowing how to wear a mask; we grow into them.”
