The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)

by Liu Cixin

It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.

Wang was familiar with old intellectuals like her: The long years had ground away all the hardness and fierceness in their personalities, until all that was left was a gentleness like that of water.

“Not very pretty, are they? Of course, they’re not as crowd-pleasing as giant pandas. Every day on this planet some species that doesn’t draw the attention of humans goes extinct.”

The French Revolution was two hundred years ago, and we haven’t even taken a step beyond that. From this we can see the hypocrisy and selfishness of the human race.”