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I also intend to help all of you equally with some things. In war, all sides benefit if the players are competent at bare basics. I want to help you keep this war from being stupid.”
There are certain mistakes you don’t want even enemies to make.”
A king may be a ruler of men, but kings can also be dragged along by those they rule.
Each death is an infinite waste, but infinity still has degrees.
We do need pretexts for our wars. A man may leap into the fray in the name of Liberty, Homeland, Human Rights, Justice, but never Economics.
Section One: the Universal Human Law Code. No Law or Right may be justly called Universal which is in any way relative, debatable, dispensable, or based on any belief or custom whose universality is not proved by those guides of Reason and Necessity which are truly unchanging in all generations of the human race. “‘Authorities, which have many names, among them Government, State, and Hive, are created by a compact of members desiring to be governed by common law and defended by common force. Each such Authority has just scope to restrict, define, and defend those who have voluntarily submitted
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Menestius: “Some causes are worth it.” Achilles: “You think mine is?” Menestius: “Yes. You want to end the war.” Achilles: “Everyone wants to end the war.”
O.S.: “You think you were chosen for the greater good?” The Addressee: “There is a Purpose; that is not the same as Good.”
Wise men do not envy Emperors.
a leader’s urging has only so much power over a frightened widow with a jagged stone.
“Creating peace zones means creating war zones|”
STRANGER, GO TELL YOUR LAWMAKERS THAT, WITH THESE CUSTOMS, WE LAWLESS FEW LIVE WELL. 1. Here we endeavor sincerely to keep the peace, but when that fails, we defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal. 2. Here we remember that what we do to others, others can and will do to us. 3. Here we put reasonable effort into accommodating others, no more nor less. 4. Here, when we harm others, we either volunteer fair recompense, or accept vendetta; when we are harmed, we accept fair recompense, and do not let vendetta go too far. 5. Here we endeavor not to harm or monopolize communal things.
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The pair have crossed swords, I suspect, or had sex. Or both. It can be difficult to tell the difference.
“All material things are mortal after all.”
There is no treasure in any bank vault to match the presumption of honesty, the willingness to believe that what we said—even what I said—was what we truly believed.
hope, like mold, grows back in many miniatures once the parent’s removal spreads the spores.
war ends when the sides agree on the terms of the peace,
narrative is a powerful force in the world,
one thing humans can definitely do is throw old dreams away.
I will not risk sacrificing the future for the present. I will not give up a thousand future worlds to save this one.”
The terms of office allow, in fact command, each Emperor to take the Oath, but then to add or change three words of the text he himself received, though without violating the spirit of what stood before.
This is war. Better a spear than a rock, but better a rock than nothing.”
Public knowledge of the succession leads to envy, plots, defamation, sycophancy, murder, and, most dangerous, to the successor knowing they are the successor.
It is not power that corrupts, but the belief that it is yours.
Instinct and intuition are mere nicknames for conclusions one cannot yet consciously justify,
“I hereby renounce the right to complacency, and vow lifelong to take only what minimum of leisure is necessary to my productivity, viewing health, happiness, rest, and play as means, not ends, and that, while Utopia provides my needs, I will commit the full produce of my labors to our collective effort to redirect the path of human life away from death and toward the stars.”
If we were bending the law, we served the higher law that kids deserve to learn.
Times change because we change them, and therein there is hope,
