Greg Bear Quotes

I sometimes think we deserve to die, we’re all so goddamned stupid.

Alienation without must be accompanied by alienation within; that is the law for every social level, even individuals. To harm one’s fellows, even one’s enemies, harms you, takes away some essential element from your self-respect and self-image.

You deserve whoever governs you … Everyone is responsible for the actions of their leaders.

She saw that in all wars, the first stage was to dehumanize the enemy, reduce the enemy to a lower level so that he might be killed without compunction. When the enemy was not human to begin with, the task was easier.

Here was a creed without a coherent philosophy—a system without a sensible metaphysic. Here was puerile hypothesis and even outright fantasy masquerading as revealed the truth.

Why does our sense of individuality prevent us from correcting our weaknesses?

The feedback loop is half of the secret of existence.

2. “We must know our enemy, at least a little.”
“That’s dangerous,” Prufrax said, almost instinctively.
“Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate.”

Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten.
It was in the blood, the flesh,
And now it is forever.

All states resort to force in the end.

That’s what politics is all about—coercion and lies.

1. “Being scared is nothing,” the old woman said. “Being bored, or ignorant—now that’s a crime.”

Equal in law is not equal in nature.

What he liked he despised for being likable.

The sorrow never dies; it is merely nacred by time.