The Redemption of Time Quotes

“The ten-dimensional universe was a world of light. The entire universe was constructed upon energy exchange between photons. All particles and antiparticles were formed from photons, and their mutual annihilation resulted in yet more photons. Thus, everything occurred at the speed of light, which was infinite. Even more marvelously, because particles and antiparticles balanced each other out, the total energy level of the universe was zero. This was an incredible state of symmetry, and the foundation of the emergence of intelligence in the ten-dimensional universe.” Matter, life, sentience, civilization … in this Edenic universe, everything was part of the same whole. All matter possessed life, and all life possessed sentience, and all sentience existed in a state of harmonious civilization. Unlike the three-dimensional universe, in which lonely stars hung in the vast emptiness of space, the entire universe was a living being. All life was but a part of this one grand Life, and all intelligence but a component of the highest Intelligence. The dark forest state was an impossibility for this transcendent being of unified matter and spirit. Tianming felt awe at the root of his soul. This was the original form of the Master. The ten-dimensional universe was itself alive. Sophon offered more explanations. “The Master is not an individual like a human being; rather, it is the sum of an infinite number of self-aware consciousnesses. Every consciousness shares the awareness of every other consciousness as well as the presence of the universe itself, and yet each possesses an independent will. This is a state of existence simply unimaginable by humans: individual presence absolutely, seamlessly harmonized with the universe, akin to the geometric construction of the Spirit you saw.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Just as Chronos split the heavens from earth, time divided the universe, and destroyed the eternal, changeless being that was the ten-dimensional universe. After that, all civilizations had to exist within the limits of time and space. The universe became the infinite unknown. With time came hope, anticipation, surprise, remembrance, oblivion … and above all, freedom.” “These are meaningless,” said Sophon drily. “Eternity is the only existence.” “That wasn’t how the Lurker felt. It was suffocating under the ten-dimensional universe, with its perfect symmetry and eternal immutability. As the dimensions collapsed, more and more consciousnesses, separated from the unity of the Edenic Age, came to believe in the Lurker’s cause and joined its legion. Risking annihilation, they wanted to join time and to call for yet more time. This was the reason the Master failed, don’t you see? “They need time. Other than the Master, all living beings need time.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“There is a cause for every effect, AA, but not all causes are responsible for all effects. To trace all causes and all effects is to end up in a twisted web with no end. No single person can make decisions independently; every choice is the result of changes and inputs from everyone else. Viewed from a higher vantage point, Cheng Xin was chosen by all of humanity to be the Swordholder, and her choice was humanity’s choice, her values humanity’s values. Viewed from specifics, Cheng Xin made her choice because you woke her; you woke her because of me; I was sent into space by Cheng Xin; Cheng Xin went into hibernation because of me … and the one who started it all was Wade, who wanted to kill Cheng Xin. It’s a tangled mess.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“and the past, as Faulkner said, was never dead; it wasn’t even the past. It always returned and forced you to confront it.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“man once said, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Even after years of study, the most intelligent Trisolaran strategists could understand only the simple deceptions presented in fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Tianming had once thought that after he’d found out the truth of the ten-dimensional universe, nothing else could ever shock him. He was wrong. We are moved most not by the grand mysteries of the universe, but by the emotional personal truths that define our individual pasts.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“susurrating”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“the Path of White Nourishing Liquid.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“My king, time is the Creator’s gift. Time made our rich and varied existence and society possible, but we had to pay a price for this gift: to be bound up in time. We had to submit to death and destruction. From the coddled interior of an eternal existence, we were pulled to the edge, where we must live and die in time. We are neither of existence nor of nonexistence, but always in a state of growth and change, ending with death.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“The universe is grand, but life is grander. Fate has indeed directed us to meet again.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“True life could only exist in the cruel and severe dark forest; death was the required condition for life.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“With time came hope, anticipation, surprise, remembrance, oblivion … and above all, freedom.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“The Master is not an individual like a human being; rather, it is the sum of an infinite number of self-aware consciousnesses. Every consciousness shares the awareness of every other consciousness as well as the presence of the universe itself, and yet each possesses an independent will. This is a state of existence simply unimaginable by humans: individual presence absolutely, seamlessly harmonized with the universe, akin to the geometric construction of the Spirit you saw.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“There is a cause for every effect, AA, but not all causes are responsible for all effects. To trace all causes and all effects is to end up in a twisted web with no end. No single person can make decisions independently; every choice is the result of changes and inputs from everyone else.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“A man once said, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’” “What … what nonsense is that? That sounds like a paradox.” “No, this is a lesson from one of the greatest teachers of our species. Many still believe that this is the greatest truth in the universe, far more important than mere survival.” The Trisolarans did not respond for some time, as though sensing the spiritual power in those words. After a while, they said, “If every species in the cosmos believed this, perhaps there would be no dark forest.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“A man once said, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“When you have only limited time, somehow all you want to do is to procrastinate, nap, waste time. But when the time available to you is unlimited, you don’t want to do anything else except create.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“all these sounds fused into one composition, Planet Blue’s unique cantata of life.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Even if you choose to lose only a single atom with each iteration, there will be a day when there’s nothing more to lose. And long before that, you won’t have enough for life and intelligence. In the end, only two possibilities remain for the ultimate fate of the universe: nothingness and the eternal recurrence.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“This isn’t just a war fought over a single universe. As long as time exists, there will be a war between the Lurker and the Master. We will face the exact same problem as the last universe: Should we let the universe be destroyed in the nothingness that is zero dimensions? Should we recycle all matter to let the exact same film play again? Or should we lose another five kilograms and strive for a new possibility?”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“But soon he realized that this woman was the devil, and indeed, compared with her all devils could be described as angels.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Time was the Creator’s greatest gift. Time gave rise to life and everything that accompanied it. Time frustrated the ambition of tyrants who wished to conquer the universe and ground them into dust, and gave countless embryonic civilizations the space necessary to evolve and flourish. The only things sacrificed on the altar of time were dimensions—and the Exiled God of Death.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“We are moved most not by the grand mysteries of the universe, but by the emotional personal truths that define our individual pasts.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Pythagoras called ten the perfect number, and now I finally understand what he meant.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“As another example, aged and disabled Trisolarans were forcibly dehydrated and incinerated to improve social efficiency”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Well, you can call it something like A Past outside of Time, but people will read it like science fiction. Someday, when they discover the true mysteries of the universe, they’ll understand what you really meant.” Tianming realized this wasn’t a half-bad idea. Everything he had learned from Sophon would make a pretty good story. It had everything: love and rage, humanity’s arrogance, duty of the individual, the fate of the universe … maybe everyone would benefit from such a novel. Tianming made up his mind. “Fine, I’ll do it. At least it’s easier than exploring the supermembrane.” “All right, I’m holding you to your promise. My darling Tianming—or should I call you by your present name, Cixin?—you have to write this story down, and you can always come to me if you want clarification on some details.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“There is a cause for every effect, AA, but not all causes are responsible for all effects. To trace all causes and all effects is to end up in a twisted web with no end.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“recounting bygone legends of the vanished. One of these beams had originated in a little-noticed nook of the universe once known as “the Milky Way.” It was so faint that the eyes of the vast majority of living beings could not detect it, yet it contained innumerable legends that had once moved heaven and earth, shocked belief and understanding. Ye Wenjie, Mike Evans, Ding Yi, Frederick Tyler, Zhang Beihai, Bill Hines, Luo Ji, Thomas Wade … Red Coast Base, the Earth-Trisolaris Organization, the Wallfacer Project, the Staircase Program, the Swordholders, the Bunker Project … The ancient stories remained as vivid as though they had taken place yesterday; the figures of heroes and saints continued to twinkle among the constellations.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time

“Great works of uncommon genius will call for us to return to their worlds again and again, enticing us to pour our passion and enthusiasm into them so that time may continue to cycle and progress, beloved characters may return to life, and the universes may continue to evolve and develop, without cease.”
― Baoshu, The Redemption of Time