"A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die."

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More by Poul Anderson

“Life isn’t a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn’t necessarily get the princess. So what? Who’d want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one?”

“On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.”

“Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms.”

“It was lonely, not even knowing yourself.”

“Heim ignored the mob scene on the 3V, rested his eyes on the cold serenity of the Milky Way and thought that this, at least, would endure.”

“What’s the point of our living all these centuries if we haven’t grown up even a little?”

Resonant Thoughts

"How is the present life affected by that bygone right and wrong act, and is it always by way of punishment? Is Karma only fate under another name, an already fixed and formulated destiny from which no…"

— William Quan Judge

Law1851–1896

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"Another characteristic of the idler's work is that it looks suspiciously like play. This, again, makes the non-idler feel uncomfortable. Victims of the Protestant work ethic would like all work to be …"

— Tom Hodgkinson

Literature1968

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"The most important things in my life have been being governor of Puerto Rico and eliminating the old tradition that was established by Muñoz himself of being a boss. He was the boss of the government …"

— Luis A. Ferré

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"We need some imaginative stimulus, some not impossible ideal such as may shape vague hope, and transform it into effective desire, to carry us year after year, without disgust, through the routine-wor…"

— Walter Pater

Literature1839–1894

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