Bokelskere.no

That's right. We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am.

I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

''Well, boy,'' Cadsuane finally said. ''You-''

''Are you ever going to give up that affectation, Cadsuane Sedai?'' Rand asked. ''Calling me boy? I no longer mind, though it does feel odd. I was four hundred years old on the day I died during the Age of Legends. I suspect that would make you my junior by several decades at the least. I show you respect. Perhaps it would be appropriate for you to return it. If you wish, you may call me Rand Sedai. I am, so far as I know, the only male Aes Sedai still alive who was properly raised but who never turned to the shadow.''

Cadsuane paled visibly.

Rand's smile turned kindly. ''You wish to come in and dance with the Dragon Reborn, Cadsuane. I am what I need to be. Be comforted - you face the forsaken, but you have one as ancient as they on your side.'' He turned away from her, eyes growing distant. '' Now, if only great age really were an indication of great wisdom. As easy to wish that the Dark One would simply let us be.''

He had thought more than other men, and in matters of the intellect he had that calm objectivity, that certainty of thought and knowledge, such as only really intellectual men have, who have no axe to grind, who never wish to shine, or to talk others down, or to appear always in the right.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

The Prince And The Magician

Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.

But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

"Are those real islands?" asked the young prince. "Of course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress. "And those strange and troubling creatures?" "They are all genuine and authentic princesses." "Then God must also exist!" cried the young prince. "I am God," replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.

The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.

"So, you are back," said his father, the king. "I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God," said the prince reproachfully. The king was unmoved. "Neither real islands, real princesses nor a real God exist." "I saw them!" "Tell me how God was dressed." "God was in full evening dress." "Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?" The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled. "That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived."

At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.

"My father, the king, has told me who you are," said the prince indignantly. "You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician."

The man on the shore smiled.

"It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them."

The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye.

"Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?"

The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves. "Yes, my son, I’m only a magician."

"Then the man on the other shore was God."

"The man on the other shore was another magician."

"I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic."

"There is no truth beyond magic," said the king.

The prince was full of sadness. He said "I will kill myself."

The king by magic caused Death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.

"Very well," he said, "I can bear it".

"You see, my son," said the king, "you, too, now begin to be a magician."

And then, to turn cloudward, starward, skyward, and let the dreams rush over one – no longer awed by outside powers of any order – recognizing nothing superior to oneself – painting, painting endless pictures, creating unheard symphonies that sing dream sounds to you alone, extending sympathies to the dumb brutes as equal brothers, kissing the flowers as one did when a child, letting oneself go free, go free beyond the bounds of what fear and custom call the “possible,” – this too Anarchism may mean to you, if you dare to apply it so. And if you do some day, – if sitting at your work-bench, you see a vision of surpassing glory, some picture of that golden time when there shall be no prisons on the earth, nor hunger, nor houselessness, nor accusation, nor judgment, and hearts open as printed leaves, and candid as fearlessness, if then you look across at your lowbrowed neighbor, who sweats and smells and curses at his toil, – remember that as you do not know his depth neither do you know his height. He too might dream if the yoke of custom and law and dogma were broken from him. Even now you know not what blind, bound, motionless chrysalis is working there to prepare its winged thing

Men jeg får denne følelsen av at hver og en av oss er helt ubetydelig i den store sammenhengen, jeg kunne vært en kineser på stranda, og egentlig er vi alle kinesere, eller var det sosialdemokrater.

«Nå får jeg jo mer tid til å være sammen med deg,» sa jeg. «Men jeg er jo på jobben,» sa Epsilon. «Ja, men i tankene,» sa jeg. Epsilon strøk meg over kinnet. «Jeg er verdens beste kone,» sa jeg.

I "Oder" skriver Fernando Pessoa til Chloe og Lydia, i "En følsom tid" skriver Rune Christiansen til Kristin og Heidi og Marianne, i "Fødselsdagbrev" skriver Ted Hughes til Sylvia Plath, i "Ariel" skriver Sylvia Plath til Ted Hughes, i "The pill versus the springhill mine disaster" skriver Richard Brautigan til Marcia Pacaud fra Montreal, i "Los conjurados" skriver Jorge Luis Borges til Maria Kodama, i "Moy sand and gravel" skriver Paul Muldoon til Dorothy, i "Det omöjliga" skriver Göran Sonnevi til Lena, i "Isla negra" skriver Pablo Neruda til Terusa og Rosaura og Delia og Josie Bliss og her skriver jeg til deg, søta.