Home > Work > Gravity Dreams
41 " Dzin wasn’t the problem. It was a tool, and could be misused, like any tool. The problem was that I wasn’t a demon in heart and spirit, either, and I didn’t know what I was except that being a demon in body had taken everything I had been. "
― L.E. Modesitt Jr. , Gravity Dreams
42 " Knowledge begets power. “Power begets force. “Force is applied from ignorance.” With a smile of habit, I looked at the blond youth on the end. “Sergol? Would you finish it?” “Knowledge leads to ignorance. "
43 " When the symbolic images developed by the society no longer work, and the images which do work are not those of the society, the individual has nowhere to turn. "
44 " Don’t you understand?” asked Cerrelle, her voice that of a teacher to a very young student. “No child asks to be born. No member of any society is given that choice. The only choice you have—the only real choice any of us has—is whether you will be a productive member of society. Society doesn’t owe you anything. "
45 " The ancients sought their gods in temples, in worldly goods, in the technology they created, and lastly in the stars. They found neither gods nor enlightenment in the materials of the universe, nor will any wise soul find aught in such but the reflection of sorrow. "
46 " The twofold path,” Wryan said confidently. “The total of knowledge is greater than the ability of any individual to assimilate. Because an individual does not comprehend what he or she does not know, the selection of knowledge by an individual is based on the knowledge possessed. The greater the knowledge possessed, the less likely the individual to discover ignorance. The less the knowledge possessed by the individual, the more likely ignorance is to be revealed. Thus, greater knowledge leads to greater influence by ignorance, and greater ignorance to greater influence by knowledge. "
47 " Your concern alone is the action of duty, not the judgment of that duty. "
48 " Technically developed self-consciousness isolates the self to an individual who reduces others to the status of things. "
49 " Each person believes in self-uniqueness: snowflakes are equally unique. "
50 " Of making great knowledge there is no end, and much study, and the knowledge therefrom is a weariness of the flesh and a deadening of the spirit. "
51 " That which cannot be constructed cannot be annihilated. "
52 " The ancients wrested the secrets from the depths of the earth and from the hearts of the stars, and with those secrets they banished sickness, death, and all forms of discomfort. And sickness, death, and discomfort gathered together and created the demons, and the demons destroyed the ancients. "
53 " First Love, First Knowledge, First Sorrow "
54 " To that which is born, death is certain; to that which is dead, birth is certain. "
55 " Even the mighty are limited… “That’s a tautological paradox,” my mind replies, concentrating as I am on avoiding the deadly rectangles that threaten me/us. “True mightiness would have no limits.” Any being within a universe is limited by that universe. Any ordered action in any universe results in a total increase in disorder. "
56 " I knew she wanted me to go back, to accept training as a needle jockey. But I couldn’t. Not with a whole society pushing the idea. I just couldn’t. "
57 " Every society, I understood, had to have faith in something beyond itself, beyond the day-to-day. For the ancients, it had been religion, irrational and constricting as it had been. For Dorcha, it was the way of Dzin. For Klama, the way of Toze. For Dezret, the way of Ryks. And Rykasha? The stellar dream…the dream that nothing is beyond the souls and aspirations of demons? Such fragile arrogance… "
58 " Life is born from darkness, not from light. "
59 " The dangers of knowledge are threefold.” I nodded to Katya. “There is the danger of not learning; the danger of learning too much; and the danger of not understanding,” she answered. "
60 " Belief in destiny becomes an excuse for inaction or a rationale for self-centered action. "