Dash

“Certain mystes aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them.
[...]
We believe we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.”
― Gene Wolfe, Shadow & Claw

“My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory.”
― Chief Seattle, Chief Seattle's Speech (1854)

“You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We

“I am aware of myself. And, of course, the only things that are aware of themselves and conscious of their individuality are irritated eyes, cut fingers, sore teeth. A healthy eye, finger, tooth might as well not even be there. Isn't it clear that individual consciousness is just sickness?”
― Yevgeny Zamyatin, We