"I can tell you this at least. The most convincing disguise for legitimacy is legitimacy itself."

Jack Vance Literature See all quotes by Jack Vance →

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“Evidently you do not trust me. This does not predispose me to trust you.”

“My fees are not too high. Your wage scale may simply be too low.”

“My clever baton holds your unnatural sorcery in abeyance.”

““Why not alter the habits of a lifetime and speak with candour?” asked Shimrod. “Truth, after all, need not be only the tactic of last resort.”

“I suspect that the word was invented by second-rate intelligences to describe the incomprehensible activities of their betters.”

“Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.”

Resonant Thoughts

"That condition which man terms the life of man in unity with nature, and in which man meets with God in nature because he finds his satisfaction there, has ceased to exist. The unity of man with the w…"

— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Philosophy1770–1831

#truth

"I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day and in dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive garden…"

— Arthur Machen

Literature1863–1947

#life

"In the ancient cultural places of the world there was a temple, a church or a cathedral in its center. From there came the order of life. In every modern big city there is a bank building in its cente…"

— Michael Ende

Literature1929–1995

#religion

"I know you want to study me psychologically. That's reasonable and I appreciate it. At least you don't lecture to me and pry into my affairs. You have a good technique as a psychiatrist. Let the other…"

— Hermann Göring

Politics1893–1946

#philosophy