Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy, #1)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

All things have a value. Sometimes the value is paid in coin. Other times, it is paid in time and sweat. And finally, sometimes it is paid in blood. Humanity seems most eager to use this latter currency. And we never note how much of it we’re spending, unless it happens to be our own.

People can convince themselves to be anything, and because of that, the scrivings you bind them with can’t stay anchored. To try to bind a person is like writing in the ocean.”

There are many dangers here, child, she’d said once. Many. Many ugly things you’re going to have to do. It will be a great contest for you. And you’re going to think: How do I win? And the answer is—so long as you are alive, you are winning. The only hope you should ever have is to see the next day, and the next. Some here will whisper of liberty—but you can’t be free if you aren’t alive.

“Traditional,” she echoed. “What a curious word that is. So bland, and yet often so poisonous.”

so long as you think only of survival, only of living to see the next day, you will always bear their chains. You will not be free.

*

To make toys from the bones of creation—a mad and dangerous practice.>

*

<To steal a thing is not the same as freeing a thing,> said Valeria. Then, in a soft, slightly darker tone: <This I know full well. This I know more than anything else.>

*

“Remember—move thoughtfully, give freedom to others, and you’ll rarely do wrong,

Any given innovation that empowers the individual will inevitably come to empower the powerful much, much more.