The Cassini Division Quotes

“Shooting arrows at the iron horses of Manifest Destiny.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“On this rock we had built our church. We had founded our idealism on the most nihilistic implications of science, our socialism on crass self-interest, our peace on our capacity for mutual destruction, and our liberty on determinism. We had replaced morality with convention, bravery with safety, frugality with plenty, philosophy with science, stoicism with anaesthetics and piety with immortality. The universal acid of the true knowledge had burned away a world of words, and exposed a universe of things.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“look forward eagerly to our surprise when you demonstrate your sure-fire, foolproof stratagem to prevent their entirely predictable fury from wiping us out.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Necessary Evil But Still Cool.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“one objection to it that always came up was But who will do the dirty work? I always used to answer me, and I was right.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“you should know something about us, about me. I don’t seek justice. We don’t believe in justice. We have the true knowledge. There is no justice. But there is defence, and deterrence, and revenge. That’s what I want. And I will have them all.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Malley seemed to be praying again, and I almost wished I could do the same, even with his agnostic reservations. But I’d been a good materialist in too many foxholes to relent now. All I would ask of a god is unconditional love and close air support, and I could rely on Boris for both.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Congratulations, comrades, you just made history. Small step, giant leap and all that.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Maybe it’s an illusion, maybe it would be better to let the machines handle it all, but when you start thinking like that, where do you stop? You don’t, is what, and you end up with all machines and no people.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Without power, respect is dead.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“looked somewhat sceptical, and perhaps a little hostile, then”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“For me it just confirms something I’ve thought for a long time: people in an owned world are owned.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“decades of experience of sending probes into the wormhole, and none whatsoever of any coming back.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Just don’t think that announcing your moral convictions affects any part of the universe further than your voice can reach.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Tolerance that comes from total confidence that you’re right.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“synthesized from them, and from their own bitter experiences, the first socialist philosophy based on totally pessimistic and cynical conclusions about human nature. Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter, and if need be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression, and successful life is successful aggression. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. There is nothing but matter, forces, space and time, which together make power. Nothing”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“you’re better off as a machine than as a bag of sea water.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Eccentricity is policy.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“it does take some fundamental social insecurity to sharpen the wits of genius.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“It wasn’t polite to ask neighbours what they were doing, where they were going, and so on. You had to work around to it, and not pry if they didn’t open up.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division

“Gravity gets you down (and space sucks, but that’s life). ‘Don’t ask me to spell it out.”
― Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division