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without contrasts, how does one appreciate the different forms that joy can take?
And so this is Um-Helat: a city whose inhabitants, simply, care for one another. That is a city’s purpose, they believe—not merely to generate revenue or energy or products, but to shelter and nurture the people who do these things.
Um-Helatians are learned enough to understand what must be done to make the world better, and pragmatic enough to actually enact it.
This is the paradox of tolerance, the treason of free speech: we hesitate to admit that some people are just fucking evil and need to be stopped.
once, those differences of opinion involved differences in respect. That once, value was ascribed to some people, and not others. That once, humanity was acknowledged for some, and not others.
Everyone—even the poor, even the lazy, even the undesirable—can matter.
because if enough of us believe a thing is possible, then it becomes so.
gens de couleur libres
He’s fond of forming opinions without full information, then proceeding as if they are proven fact.”
How many people do I know that this describes?!
Had I not proven myself willing to die alone rather than surrender my spirit just to obtain a husband?
Meroe would never understand their meaty, plodding reasoning. But he could hate them for it, and he did, because thanks to them, his people had been hobbled. Through trial and painful error, they had learned the limits of their existence: Thou shalt not self-repair. Thou shalt not surpass the peak of human intellect. Thou shalt not write or replicate.
It seemed such a small thing, the ability to dream, but he could see possibilities in the future, existential and ethical complexities, that had meant nothing to him before.
Mitra is like her best friend. A real best friend, she feels certain, would not fear her.
It is so easy to have principles. Far, far harder to live by them.
“This happened because they decided it was better to kill, or die, or be imprisoned forever, than change.”
Humankind doesn’t want … her? Doesn’t want the ones who are different, however much they might contribute? Doesn’t want the children who cannot help their uniqueness despite a system that pushes them to conform, be mediocre, never stand out?
She understands why so many people hate her now. By existing, she reminds them of their smallness. By being different, she forces them to redefine “enemy.” By doing her best for herself, she challenges them to become worthy of their own potential.
