Империя тишины

Храбрость - это первая добродетель дураков, покровительница тех, кто слишком испуган, чтобы убежать.

Власть подобна магниту, она действует в двух направлениях - отталкивает точно так же, как и притягивает.

My memory is to the world as a drawing is to the photograph. Imperfect. More perfect. We remember what we must, what we choose to, because it is more beautiful and real than the truth.

Augustine once said that if there are such things as the past and the future, they do not exist as such but are only the present in their own times. The past, he says, exists only in memory and the future only in expectation. Neither is real.

Страх – это смерть разума.

Atrocity is writ by quiet men in council chambers over crystal glasses of cool water. Strange little men with ashes in their hearts. Sans passion, sans hope… sans everything. Everything but fear.

It is a mistake to believe we must know a thing to be influenced by it. It is a mistake to believe the thing must even be real.

Focus blurs, Gibson used to say. Focus blinds. You must take in all of a thing by seeing the totality of it, not by focusing on minutiae. This is as important for a ruler as it is for a painter.

Civilization is a kind of prayer: that by right action we might bring to pass the peace and quiet that is the ardent desire of every decent heart.

В детстве я мечтал о приключениях. Хотел облететь всю Галактику, проникнуть в неизведанные глубины космоса и постичь тайны, скрытые в темноте между звездами. Хотел странствовать, как Тор Симеон Красный и Кхарн Сагара из древних легенд, увидеть Девяносто девять чудес Вселенной и преломить хлеб с ксенобитами и королями. Что ж, я получил свои приключения, и теперь они убивали меня.