“What hath night to do with sleep?”
“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”
“Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”
“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”
“All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.”
“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...”
“I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend...”
“Me miserable! Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
“This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.”
“For so I created them free and free they must remain.”
“What is dark within me, illumine.”
“Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross. ”
“A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.”
“Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell. ”
“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”
“O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams
That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.”
“Our state cannot be severed, we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.”
“Knowledge forbidden?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know?
Can it be death?”
“Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.”
“Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.”
“Ah, why should all mankind
For one man's fault, be condemned,
If guiltless?”
“From his lips/Not words alone pleased her.”
“They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.”
“What though the field be lost?
All is not Lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And the courage never to submit or yeild.”
“And that must end us, that must be our cure:
To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night
Devoid of sense and motion?”
“Be strong, live happy and love, but first of all
Him whom to love is to obey, and keep
His great command!”
“Our cure, to be no more; sad cure! ”
“(...) You Sophotechs are smarter than I am; why did you let me do such a foolish thing?”
“We answer every question our resources and instruction parameters allow; we are more than happy to advise you, when and if we are asked.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking of, and you know it.”
“You are thinking we should use force to defend you against yourself against your will? That is hardly a thought worth thinking, sir. Your life has exactly the value you yourself place on it. It is yours to damage or ruin as you wish.”
(...)
“Is that another hint? Are you saying I’m destroying my life? People at the party, twice now, have said or implied that I’m going to endanger the Oecumene itself. Who stopped me?”
“Not I. While life continues, it cannot be made to be without risk. The assessment of whether or not a certain risk is worth taking depends on subjective value-judgments. About such judgments even reasonable men can differ. We Sophotechs will not interfere with such decisions. (...) If we were to overrule your ownership of your own life, your life, would, in effect, become our property, and you, in effect, would become merely the custodian or trustee of that life. Do you think you would value it more in such a case, or less? And if you valued it less, would you not take greater risks and behave more self-destructively? If, on the other hand, each man’s life is his own, he may experiment freely, risking only what is his, till he find his best happiness.”
“I see the results of failed experiments all around us, in these cylinders. I see wasted lives, and people trapped in mind sets and life forms which lead nowhere.”
“While life continues, experimentation and evolution must also. The pain and risk of failure cannot be eliminated. The most we can do is maximize human freedom, so that no man is forced to pay for another man’s mistakes, so that the pain of failure falls only on he who risks it. And you do not know which ways of life lead nowhere. Even we Sophotechs do not know where all paths lead.”
“How benevolent of you! We will always be free to be stupid.”
“Cherish that freedom, young master; it is basic to all others.”
“Like I got intimately acquainted with a meat grinder.”
“But, I believe," I continue, "I know what true love is - or what it should be."
"What should it be?" Tristan asks, his voice soft now.
"It should be a friendship and truly knowing who a person is, knowing his flaws and hopes and strengths and fears, knowing all of it. And admiring and caring for - loving the person because of those things.”
“I want to go home.”
His first reaction was to shout, “Nay!” It took all his restraint not to shout the denial. A cold fist of dread clenched his throat and squeezed relentlessly. She wasn’t happy. Even a fool could see that she was miserable.”
“A man.
A really manly man with a lot of mannishness in his manliness.”
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