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“Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.”
There are the Brothers of Cool, a reserved and secretive sect, which believes that only through ultimate coolness can the universe be comprehended, and that black works with everything, and that chrome will never truly go out of style.
He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staff, they began with an exorcism.
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying “End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,” the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.
He wasn’t sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was “cultural,” apparently, and you couldn’t object to that, so he didn’t. “Cultural” sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there.
Honestly, thought Susan, once you learned the arts of defending the Stationery Cupboard, outwitting Jason, and keeping the class pet alive until the end of term, you’ve mastered at least half of teaching.
“Reason? What reason can a mountain have? And, as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to ‘Because.’”
The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting, it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,” said Lu-Tze. “After all, enlightenment begins where perplexity ends.
Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and—this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit—it didn’t even make you right. But it did make you definite,
But a brain, a few soggy pounds of gristle, counted numbers so fast that they stopped being numbers at all. She’d been astonished at how easily it could direct a hand to catch a ball in the air, calculating future positions of hand and ball without her even being aware of it.
There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,” said Unity sadly.
Susan was very strict about eating in class and took the view that, if there were rules, then they applied to everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But rules were there to make you think before you broke them.
Every society needs a cry like that, but only in a very few do they come out with the complete, unvarnished version, which is “Remember-The-Atrocity-Committed-Against-Us-Last-Time-That-Will-Excuse-The-Atrocity-That-We’re-About-To-Commit-Today! And So On! Hurrah!”.
