Quotes from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“We are all creatures of the stars.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“War...strengthened the position of the armament industries...to a point...that these industries dominated the economies and therefore the governments of all the participating nations...war barbarised and lowered the already very low level of accepted conduct.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“We are all creatures of the stars and their forces, they make us, we make them, we are part of a dance from which we by no means and not ever may consider ourselves separate. But when the Gods explode, or err, or dissolve into flying clouds of gas, or shrink, or expand, or whatever else their fates might demand, then the minuscule items of their substance may in their small ways express—not protest, which of course is inappropriate to their station in life—but an acknowledgement of the existence of irony: yes, they may sometimes allow themselves—always with respect—the mildest possible grimace of irony.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“Standardisation of intellectual and emotional patterns had become extreme. A main mechanism for achieving this was a device that supplied identical indoctrinational material simultaneously into every living or working unit, whether that of a single person, a family, or an institution, through a whole country. These programmes were standardised, particularly for children. At best they reinforced a low level of ethic—kindness to animals, for instance—but the worst was inherent in the sheer fact of the infinite repetition.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“The young often have moments of clear thinking, which as they grow older become fewer, and muddied. He had kept alive in some part of him a knowledge that he was “destined” to do something or other. He felt this as pure and unsullied, but—more often and more deeply as he grew older—“impractical”.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“And when the dark comes, he will look up and out and see a little smudge of light that is a galaxy that exploded millions of years ago, and the oppression that had gripped his heart lifts, and he laughs, and he calls his wife and says: Look, we are seeing something that ceased to exist millions of years ago—and she sees, exactly, and laughs with him.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“This is because the nature of this place is a strong emotion - "nostalgia" is their word for it - which means a longing for what has never been, or at least not in the form and shape imagined.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“What you don’t understand is, people never believe these things. Not until they experience them. Then when they experience them they become people other people don’t believe. Hard lines.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“Now these delightful infants are born haphazardly of any mating, any parents, treated well or ill as chance dictates, dying as easily as they are born, and dying anyway so soon after they are born - and yet in each child, every one, has all the potentiality, has it still, and completely, to leap from his low half-animal state to true humanity. Each one of them with this potential, and yet so few can be reached, to make the leap.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“...a family wanting no more than to live without challenge or drama could easily find a quiet street, and "peace," provided they were fortunate enough to live in a comparatively sheltered and favoured geographical area, and provided they were able to make the mental adjustment to relegate war - and its consequences - into something that happened elsewhere and did not affect them; or something that had happened to them, but between such and such dates, and then taken itself off.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

“I suddenly saw her quite differently. I saw that she was a person. Not my mother. She had thought it all out. She had wanted to commit suicide. She would never commit suicide. On that night I grew up. Or so I would like to believe.”
― Doris Lessing, quote from Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

About the author

Popular quotes

“Men were good for one thing only. Killing spiders.”
― Kate Carlisle, quote from Homicide in Hardcover

“Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic,' as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—as are the grape and the grain—to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, quote from Hitch-22: A Memoir

“That was before I found out that capitalists are just communists without the polyester.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“He whose heart is full of tenderness, and truth; Who loves mankind more than he loves himself, And cannot find room in his heart to hate, May be another Christ. We all may be The Saviours of the world, if we believe In the Divinity which dwells in us And worship it, and nail our grosser selves, Our tempers, greeds, and our unworthy aims, Upon the cross. Who giveth love to all, Pays kindness for unkindness, smiles for frowns, Lends new courage to each fainting heart, And strengthens hope and scatters joy abroad, He, too, is a Redeemer, Son of God. Ella Wheeler Wilcox5”
― quote from Discover the Power Within You

“One symptom that you have bogged down in complexity overload is when you find yourself doggedly applying a method that is clearly irrelevant, at least to any outside observer. It is like the mechanically inept person whose car breaks down—so he puts water in the battery and empties the ashtrays. — P. J. Plauger”
― quote from Code Complete

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.