Pandora's Star

How you humans survive so much experience is something I shall never understand. To do so much and react to it all in the way you do is as much a curse as a blessing. You never take time to digest and appreciate what happens to you.

He never did understand why people admired or even collected art. The greatest human artist could never hope to match what nature did with a single flower.

The hostile force! The reasone the barrier was established. "Astrophysics, do we know what's causing that?" "No, sir," Bruno said cheerfully. "Not a clue".

I believe that intelligence and rationality will always be primary no matter what shape sentient creatures take. To not think that would be to doubt the value of life itself.

Life's a bitch, then you rejuvenate and do it all over again.

Only people with one short life want to go tearing out into the great unknown with nothing more than a flashlight and a stick to poke the rattlers with.

he said that for wickedness to succeed all it takes is for decent people to do nothing.

Genuine scientific progress is a slow climb, which requires a stable society to support thinkers and theorists over many generations.

Three hundred and twenty-eight wormholes were opened in unison. They were small, all of them measuring a metre and a half wide. Just enough for a ten-megatonne warhead to pass through. The wormholes closed.

Wherever you find human misery, you find lawyers, either causing it or making a profit from it.

The original castle back in Edinburgh was the seat of Scottish nationalism. It symbolized everything to the diehard believers. Despite all the changes and defeats they endured, the castle stood solid at the center of their capital. They waited for generations for the Scottish nation to be properly reborn after their Bonnie Prince was lost. There were times when the cause seemed impossible, or even cursed; they regained their independence from the English only to lose it again right away with the formation of Federal Europe.

That was the trouble with freethinkers, they had overactive imaginations that made them uncertain.