Death's End (The Three-Body Problem, #3)

by Cixin Liu

A physician can only cure diseases meant to be cured; the Buddha can only save those meant to be saved.”

Only one person stood outside the door to the euthanasia room. But for Tianming, the whole world seemed brighter: Cheng Xin.

he understood space’s sinister nature better than the general public. Hell was not on Earth, but in heaven.

Life reached an evolutionary milestone when it climbed onto land from the ocean, but those first fish that climbed onto land ceased to be fish. Similarly, when humans truly enter space and are freed from the Earth, they cease to be human. So, to all of you I say this: When you think about heading into outer space without looking back, please reconsider. The cost you must pay is far greater than you could imagine.

You’re one of those people from the past, like my dissertation advisor, torn by conflict between two ideals. But, in our age, conscience and duty are not ideals: an excess of either is seen as a mental illness called social-pressure personality disorder. You should seek treatment.”

“Your intuition is unreliable in space. If you must act based on intuition, count from one to one hundred first. At least count from one to ten.”

Tianming’s stories had now acquired a status akin to the Bible. Without realizing it, people were no longer searching for real strategic intelligence, but reassurance that they were already on the right course.

“From a scientific perspective, ‘destroy’ isn’t really accurate. Nothing has disappeared. All the matter that used to be there is still there, and so is all the angular momentum. It’s only the arrangement of matter that has changed, like a deck of cards being reshuffled. But life is like a straight flush: Once you shuffle, it’s gone.”

The bulk of the machine consisted of a sphere bisected horizontally by a flat black metallic plane that extended several meters over the edge of the sphere. The plane, holding up the sphere at about waist-height, also served as a lab bench with sturdy legs. The surface of the bench was mostly empty save for a few tools and manipulators attached to telescoping arms. The metal hemisphere below the bench was studded with tubes of various thicknesses, all aimed at the invisible center of the sphere, causing the machine to look like a naval mine studded with Hertz horns. Apparently, the arrangement was designed to concentrate some kind of energy at the center. The hemisphere above the bench, in contrast, was made of transparent glass. The two hemispheres together formed a whole divided by the metal plane, contrasting simple transparency with complex opacity.

“If we lose our human nature, we lose much, but if we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything.”

Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is.

The ultimate fate of all intelligent beings has always been to become as grand as their thoughts.