“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the les...” — Thomas Jefferson Quote

“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”

“Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?”

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”

“Hope is a slighter, tougher thing even than trust, he thought, pacing his room as the soundless, vague lightning flashed overhead. In a good season one trusts life; in a bad season one only hopes. But they are of the same essence: they are the mind's indispensable relationship with other minds, with the world, and with time. Without trust, a man lives, but not a human life; without hope, he dies.”

“I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I'd like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope. I think that the kind of things that we talk about at this conference -- fantasy very much so, science fiction, and even horror -- the message that we're sending is the reverse of the message sent by what is called "realistic fiction." (I happen to think that realistic fiction is not, in fact, realistic, but that's a side issue.) And what we are saying is that it doesn't have to be like this: things can be different. Our society can be changed. Maybe it's worse, maybe it's better. Maybe it's a higher civilization, maybe it's a barbaric civilization. But it doesn't have to be the way it is now. Things can change. And we're also saying things can change for you in your life. Look at the difference between Severian the apprentice and Severian the Autarch [in”

“Do you remember? Every spring, we wanted to see the cherry blossoms. We even dreamed of going to Japan one day.”

“If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.”