The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel #4)

by Josiah Bancroft

Some of my crew are convinced an old rope will continue to hold purely because it has held for so long. As if a ship was buoyed by precedent. As if the past promised a future.

while pleasures in life are brief, the tedium between joys is long.

Anger that survives until morning is either righteous or insidious. Either way, it must be dealt with.

To lead is to come last. A chef only eats when the dishes are done, and a captain goes down with the ship.

he found the whole practice of congratulating young men on their romantic engagements loathsome. Love wasn’t a sport, and the adored was not some woodland game. In Adam’s experience, the men who bayed the loudest about such things were often unloved and bitterly so.

“We all forget we’re mortal now and then. We have to, to keep from going mad. But I never forget the people I love, and that keeps me from taking myself for granted. I don’t want to leave them too soon.

He understood that accusations made in wrath drew from the proof of emotions rather than the substance of facts, and as such were incontestable.

Do not waste the limited resource of your patience on those who think misery a competition. Spendthrifts of self-pity are always miserly the moment empathy is due.

My words inspire no conversions. People only read what they already believe to be true, and if they encounter something that seems to disagree with their beliefs, they bend it into agreement, and if it cannot be bent, then they call it a conspiracy and cast it away!”

“The point is to try! The only enemy is complacency; the messy rest serves the cause!”

Pilgrims are encouraged to remember that the principal consumer of sheep is not wolves but shepherds.

When you think little of yourself, everyone else’s opinion of you becomes more important than your own.

Outrage, like charity, is sweeter with an audience.

I think that if we really knew how good our lives were while they were good, we’d be too scared to do anything, change anything. We’d never take a risk, or explore, or grow. You can hate yourself for not fully appreciating your happy days while you had them, or you could look back and be warmed by the memory, couldn’t you?”

Neglect never patched a crack, nor denial plugged a hole. Do not forget your imperfections; they have not forgotten you.

the trouble with insisting upon one’s own perfection was that it prevented one from either addressing a flaw or effectively concealing it.

understanding nothing, or very little of the world, and having no desire to understand more than you already do, well, that invites entitlement. What was a privilege becomes a right. And that, I think, is dangerous.”

“The reason we study and learn, the reason we take only what we need, is because we have all been given a great gift—the gift of civilization, the gift of understanding, the gift of mastery over our environment—and if we misuse these, if we take these things for granted, the ones who will suffer most are our sons and daughters.