“Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.”
“Life arises naturally; where life is, death is, joy is, pain is. Where joy and pain are, ecstacy and horror are, all part of the pattern. They occur as night and day occur on a whirling planet. They are not individually willed into being and shot at persons like arrows. Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day’s receipts…”
“Faith healers. God-loves-you religions. State-supported lotteries. All that enormous energy expended to conquer nothing at all, stadia full of people watching no conquering going on. For every scientist or person in government who really tried to conquer, there were a thousand people buying lottery tickets, drinking beer, watching football, and growing old.” Nell objected, “We would have outgrown that…” The voice grew more conversational. “I think not. Once a race has technology, life is so much easier that conquering loses its urgency. I blame myself for leaving when I did. I could have delayed the acquisition of technology until you had killed your devils. Technology concurrent with devil worship never works out well.”
“Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one’s own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.”
“If a society thinks it needs weapons, it must accept killing. If it thinks it needs violent men, it must accept rapine and assault.”
“I’m not going to ask God to protect us when we’re able to protect ourselves. When you started getting religious, we agreed not to fight about it. You can pray away all the meteorites in the universe and I won’t mind a bit, but I’m going to build us a shelter.”
“I’m incapable of being edified until I’ve had something to eat.”
“Cariad, nothing about this is casual to me. But if you want a long, sensitive discussion about my feelings, I can't help you. I'm from North Wales, where we express ourselves by throwing rocks at trees. I've had more feelings in the past half-hour that I have in my entire life, and I'm at my limit."
"That still doesn't -"
"I love whatever it is you're made of. All of it.”
“History is a quest for truth.”
“Hey, give me my gun, would you?” Zane asked as he shifted, only to wince as the skin pulled.
“Why, you planning on shooting me in the ass when I turn around?” Ty asked sarcastically as he reached for the holster.
“Tempting, but you’d probably get off on it,” Zane said, holding out his hand.”
“I had also never realized before that I loved him, but I did. And his pain was my pain, and it hurt, but it also felt good in a strange way, knowing that we could share in it together.”
“C'es l'histoire d'un curé qui se prive de manger pour sauver un Arabe, d'un Arabe qui sauve un Juif en lui donnant encore de raison de croire, d'n Juif qui tient l'Arabe au creux de ses bras, tandis qu'il va mourir, en attendant son tour ; tu vois, c'est l'histoire du monde des hommes avec ses moments de merveilles insoupçonnées.”
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.