"All children are manipulators."

Orson Scott Card Literature See all quotes by Orson Scott Card →

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“We can wash people in the water all we want, but we can never wash their parents out of their hearts.”

“How is clean, painless nonexistence any worse than clean, painless death?”

“We've seen the worst that men can do, pa, and been the worst that men can be. But that don't mean that someday we won't see the best, too. And if we can never be perfect after this, well, we can still be pretty good, can't we?”

“Last night Alvin just got mad, which she said would only guarantee that he’d stay stupid.”

“Once you have the gallows, you’ll find new reasons to hang people from it.”

“It is the essence of dignity to pretend to desire what you cannot prevent.”

Resonant Thoughts

"As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot …"

— Wangari Maathai

Politics1940–2011

#family

"Ultra-nationalism is an appealing ideology; the Third Reich fought to the end, even sending their children into battle... We should not underestimate its appeal."

— Brian Reynolds Myers

Education1963

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"The primary school is like the rope which the Indian juggler throws into the air to end in vacancy; that while in the United States some twenty-eight per cent, of the children entering the primary sch…"

— R. H. Tawney

Economics1880–1962

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"... in terms of modern solid state physics, what does “transparent” mean? It means that, in the energy spectrum of the electrons in the material, there is a gap of forbidden energies between the occup…"

— Nevill Francis Mott

Science1905–1996

#family