Matt Hughes Quotes

Have you considered the possibility that our standards as to what is important may differ?

A lifelong habit of being right also had the effect of diminishing one’s social appeal, especially among those who prefer to keep the bubble of their various illusions a safe distance from a needle-sharp and probing intelligence.

My intent was to spot not only Massim Shar’s cut-out but the other member of his criminal coterie who would be there to watch our transaction. There might even be a watcher to watch the watcher, trust being a commodity in short supply among the lawless.”

Well, as I say, authority is always lawfully relinquished, but sometimes the legitimacy is acquired after the relinquishment.
“You mean retroactively?”
I mean that cause and effect are not always arranged in an ideal sequence.
“In other words,” Filidor translated, “not only do victors write the histories, but usurpers also rewrite the rule book to justify the illicit seizure of office.”
Perhaps not the most felicitous manner of putting it, but essentially correct.
“I am surprised the people put up with such shenanigans. They should rise up.”
Unwittingly, I am sure, you put your finger on the flaw in your own reasoning.
“How so?”
You said, “They should rise up,” not “We should rise up.” As long as it is a matter to be solved by others, it will not be.

"The likelihood seems farfetched."
"So have several of the situations in which we have found ourselves in the recent past," I said.
"But you are resolved to avoid those kinds of situations in the future."
I made a gesture ripe with fatalism. "I have come to understand that the universe accords my resolutions a good deal less consideration than I would prefer."

“We should be frank with each other,” Lavelan said.
It had been my experience that most conversations that were launched on such a declaration represented an attempt by the initiator to gain far more information than he intended to give.

"Magic," said my integrator, "has rules. At the heart of the willful, associative universe, we find a modicum of rationalism, just as we find uncertainty at the core of the rational cosmos."
"Exactly," I said. "And there seems no other explanation for it than sheer perversity on the part of whatever entity is responsible for the whole untidy business."
I thought about it a moment more then said, "Perversity, or just a very idiosyncratic sense of humor."

“What is your theory?” my assistant asked, but again I declined to answer. A mistaken theory that never went farther than its originator’s mind does not count as an error.

The direct approach is not always the wisest strategy, as those who have fallen off mountains can testify.

Assigning blame is a fixation of an ineffective mind.

"From within such a calcified culture, no change can be generated; the impetus for reform must arise from without. Hence, the external threat posed by Hunan Diath."
"Who does not exist," said Filidor.
"Who need not exist," said Gaskarth, "so long as the idea can do its work."

Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.

I had no doubt that there was madness here. How could it be otherwise in a cosmos that was ordered solely by will? It did not mean that the insane would automatically rise to the apex of the social order; their efforts would be diffused by the randomness of the impulses that drove them. But those whose extraordinary powers of will propelled them to the heights of power and rank would always be vulnerable to going further than they should. And there would be none but their equally mad rivals to restrain them.

I cannot comment on your beliefs. What appears self-evident to one person may seem to another observer to be entirely the product of an idiosyncratic bent.

"Isn't it obvious?" he answered.
"No. It is so far from obvious that it has gone right through obscure, breezed past unfathomable and is now completely beyond the reach of my vocabulary."