The Will to Battle (Terra Ignota, #3)

by Ada Palmer

I think all humans feel rage at our finitude when we see others read what we cannot.

ignorance and pain are indistinguishable, so refusing to answer a question is a form of torture,

Greek differentiates the political enemy, πoλέµιoς, whom one might face across the battlefield with honor and respect, from the personal enemy, ἐχθρός, who may be a fellow-countryman or even a grudging ally, but who seeks your ruin and you his in a lifelong, irredeemable vendetta. Ἄναξ Jehovah understands this difference, Caesar too in Latin’s hostis and inimicus.

Dominic placed his finger between the pages of Pascal to keep his place, a motion no more reassuring than if he had taken a red-hot poker off my flesh to reheat it in the fire.

Times change because we change them, and therein there is hope,

There is nothing extra in Achilles’s motion, or their body, just pure, streamlined purpose. If the other athletes were vigorous lions, Achilles was a cheetah, anatomy stripped of everything that wasn’t necessary for the perfection of a single goal. For cheetahs it is speed; for Achilles it is clearly war.

Plato said they thought disembodied souls were like flying eyeballs that could see 360 degrees, but got trapped in bodies that could only see 120, so were always unhappy, like if you have one eye taped shut.