"What is perceived is dictated by the instrument. If you had other eyes, or another mind, you would see all things otherwise."

Gene Wolfe Literature See all quotes by Gene Wolfe →

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More by Gene Wolfe

“What little I have learned in the course of a long life, regarding the gods, I have tried to forget.”

“There are people who love birds so much they free them. There are others who love them so much they cage them.”

“Until we reach the end of time, we don’t know whether something’s been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted.”

“No man has a home unless he is master of a place where he must please no one—a place where he can go and lock the door behind him.”

“The best way to be thought honest is to be honest.”

““You’re called a holy man,” she said. “I see you’re wholly deranged.”

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"We have referred to Marxism and National Socialism as secular religions. They are not opposites, but are fundamentally akin, in a religious as well as in a secular sense. Both are messianic and social…"

— Frederick Augustus Voigt

Journalism1892–1957

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"We thank thee for the wisdom of the fathers in the formation of this government, and for the assistance thou didst render them in arriving at the great principles relating to the equality of man. We t…"

— Owen Lovejoy

Politics1811–1864

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"I love slightly dangerous things. High energy, edgy things. I learned to ski when I was 63, which is a bit hazardous. But I go off once a year to the place where the Russian mafia assemble in the Alps…"

— Vince Cable

Politics1943

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"Vacuum stands and remains a mathematical space. A cube placed in a vacuum would not displace anything, as it would displace air or water in a space already containing those fluids."

— Robert Grosseteste

Religion1175–1253

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