Lars Andersson > Lars's Quotes

“This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“As a young man he had been a brave soldier fighting in the Peloponnesian wars against the Spartans and their allies. In middle age he shuffled around the marketplace, stopping people from time to time and asking them awkward questions. That was more or less all he did.”
― Nigel Warburton, A Little History of Philosophy

“What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots?”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“Silly old Bear,”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“But like the crusaders, who in the name of piety had carried out that dreadful massacre in Jerusalem, there were many citizens who failed to hear in those penitential sermons a call to mend their ways, and instead learnt to hate all those who didn’t share their faith.”
― E.H. Gombrich, A Little History of the World

“Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead.’ Case”
― William Gibson, Neuromancer

“The once-great country into which I’d been born now resembled its former self in name only. It didn’t matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it. Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists.”
― Ernest Cline

“He is as he always told me to be—a stone amid the waves; wet, yet unimpressed by all that swirls about him.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Tradition is the crown of the tyrant. I eye all the Golds in their badges and Sigils and standards, all worn to legitimize corrupt reign, and to alienate the people.”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“I’m a terrorist warlord! Stop throwing me. You made me drop my candy!”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory—and this is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow