Bokelskere.no

‘It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man’s hand and the wisdom in a tree’s root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.’

"Sunlight and starlight are time, and time is light. In the sunlight, in the days and years, life is."

"From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees."

What does seventy million years mean to beings who live only one-millionth as long? We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

Human beings, born ultimately of the stars and now for a while inhabiting a world called Earth, have begun their long voyage home

Each star system is an island in space, quarantined from its neighbors by the light-years. I can imagine creatures evolving into glimmerings of knowledge on innumerable worlds, every one of them assuming at first their puny planet and paltry few suns to be all that is. We grow up in isolation. Only slowly do we teach ourselves the Cosmos.

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.

What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it.

Over and over and over it made the same sounds, yet never quite the same. It never rested. On all the shores of all the lands in all the world, it heaved itself in these unresting waves, and never ceased, and never was still. The desert, the mountains: they stood still. They did not cry out forever in a great, dull voice. The sea spoke forever, but its language was foreign to her. She did not understand.

‘Did you truly think them dead? You know better in your heart. They do not die. They are dark and undying, and they hate the light: the brief, bright light of our mortality. They are immortal, but they are not gods. They never were. They are not worth the worship of any human soul.’

Historiske nedtegnelser forteller oss ikke nødvendigvis hva som har hendt i virkeligheten, men bare forfatternes oppfattelse av hendelsene, eller hva de ønsket at andre skal tro har hendt.

En mening som går på tvers av det som er moderne, får nesten aldri en fair behandling, verken i den populære presse, eller i de intellektuelle tidsskrifter.

Hvis du ønsker å forandre verden, bør du først få deg en utdannelse.

Dypest sett er rasistiske uttalelser mer tragisk for rasistene enn dem de er ment å gå ut over, fordi de åpenbarer engstelige, lukkede og avstumpede sinn. Et menneske som ikke kan tåle annerledeshet, tåler neppe seg selv så veldig godt heller.