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“Reason is the first victim of strong emotion,”
‘Why is there anything?’ Every religious, business and governmental question has the single derivative: ‘Who will exercise the power?’ Alliances, combines, complexes, they all chase mirages unless they go for the power. All else is nonsense, as most thinking beings come to realize.”
They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”
Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity.
To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers.
More than one government has fallen because people discovered the real extent of official wealth.
Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.
“You don’t back people into a corner,” Alia said. “Not if you want them to remain peaceful.”
“Deceit is a tool of statecraft,”
“There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover,”
Truth suffers from too much analysis.
When a creature has developed into one thing, he will choose death rather than change into his opposite.
He watched her accept this. She did it the way sand accepted water: absorbing and concealing.
“Because we cannot imagine a thing, that doesn’t exclude it from reality.
can’t build politics on love,” he said. “People aren’t concerned with love; it’s too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos. We can’t have that, can we? And how do you make despotism lovable?”
Only those who recognize the value of war and exercise it have any degree of self-determination.”
There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences.
