Gary > Gary's Quotes

“The presence of God compelled human[s] to quest for an ideal. They had to strive for something to win God's blessing.... Nietzsche feared that with God's passing even that striving would stop. No one would think it worthwhile to try to overcome himself. People who would live happily with their own limitations.... Worse was life in which humanity had lost all interest in ideals. This was the world epitomized by "The Last Man." This creature hops and blinks on the Earth's crust, small and self-seeking, lives with the most pitiable credo: `One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: Both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.' The Last Man has his `little poison now and then: That makes for agreeable dreams'; he is cautious, self-absorbed, noncommittal.... What happens now and in the future if our most intelligent students never learn to strive to overcome what they are?”
― Mark Edmundson

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

“But democrats are seldom welcome on planets run by totalitarian governments, and scarcely more welcome on planets where anarchy prevails--this is due to the very nature of democracy, the only practical compromise between totalitarianism and anarchy.”
― Christopher Stasheff, The Warlock in Spite of Himself

“God does not ask that you never fail—He asks only that you persevere.”
― Christopher Stasheff, The Oathbound Wizard

“Glory comes from keeping on trying when you're losing, not from giving up!”
― Christopher Stasheff, Her Majesty's Wizard