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1 " The two friends went on and on toward the sierra, at times keeping the highway, at times. deviating from it.Whenever they passed through a town or a hamlet, the slow peal of bells tolling the death-knell announced to our hero that the Angel of Death was not losing his time; that his arm reached to every part of the world, and that, though Gil felt it now weighing upon his breast like a mountain of ice, none the less did it scatter ruin and desolation over the entire surface of the earth.As they went, the Angel of Death related many strange and wonderful things to his protege.The foe of history, he took pleasure in scoffing at its pretended utility, in disproof of which he narrated many facts as they had actually occurred, and not as they are recorded on monuments and in chronicles.The abysses of the past opened before the entranced imagination of Gil Gil, revealing to him facts of transcendent importance concerning the fate of man and of empires, disclosing to him the great mystery of the origin of life and the no less great and terrible mystery of the end to which we, wrongly called mortals, are progressing, and causing him, finally, to comprehend, by the light of this sublime philosophy, the laws which preside at the evolution of cosmic matter, and its various manifestations in those ephemeral and transitory forms which are called minerals, plants,animals, stars, constellations, nebula, and worlds. (" The Friend Of The Death" ) "
2 " Arjuro made a scoffing sound. ‘You think Lumatere will invade because of you? Are you that important?’Froi looked away. ‘Isaboe would invade if you kidnapped a servant, let alone a friend.’‘Isaboe? We’re on first-name terms with the Queen of Lumatere, are we?’ Gargarin asked.Froi found himself bristling. ‘What? Do you think I’m some cutthroat for hire who they found hanging around the palace walls with the words “I wantto kill a Charynite King” tattooed on my arse? "
― Melina Marchetta , Froi of the Exiles (Lumatere Chronicles, #2)
3 " There are all degrees of proficiency in the use men make of this instructive world where we are boarded and schooled and apprenticed. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three degrees of progress.One class lives to the utility of the symbol, as the majority of men do, regarding health and wealth as the chief good. Another class live about this mark to the beauty of the symbol; as the poet and artist and the sensual school in philosophy. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified and these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third spiritual perception.I see in society the neophytes of all these classes, the class especially of young men who in their best knowledge of the sign have a misgiving that there is yet an unattained substance and they grope and sigh and aspire long in dissatisfaction, the sand-blind adorers of the symbol meantime chirping and scoffing and trampling them down. I see moreover that the perfect man - one to a millennium - if so many, traverses the whole scale and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly; then also has a clear eye for its beauty; and lastly wears it lightly as a robe which he can easily throw off, for he sees the reality and divine splendor of the inmost nature bursting through each chink and cranny. "
― Ralph Waldo Emerson , Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II: 1836-1838
4 " He can learn things about me through your blood. Can learn about my sister!" She briefly covered her mouth. " He can see everything we've done! I don't want that leech to know what we do in private." Lothaire strolled up, making a scoffing sound. " As if I don't watch you two live from a distance. "
5 " I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and just as complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with. "
― Margaret Atwood , The Blind Assassin