Caves Of Steel Quotes

We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance.

The troubles of modern life come from being divorced from nature.

people sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they don’t know how to fix themselves.

Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency.

The first problem of living is to minimize friction with the crowds that surround you on all sides.

In themselves, harmless. As a group, incredibly dangerous.

The colonization of space is the only possible salvation of Earth.

Jessie rummaged through her purse for the necessary equipment. If there were one thing, Baley had once said solemnly, that had resisted mechanical improvement since medieval times, it was a woman's purse.

Despite being depicted in innumerable cartoons as apelike brutes living in caves, Neanderthals had brains slightly larger than our own. They were also the first humans to leave behind strong evidence of burying their dead and caring for their sick.

Carbon is the basis of human life and iron of robot life. It becomes easy to speak of C/Fe when you wish express a culture that combines the best of the two on an equal but parallel basis.

You are a practical man, Elijah. You do not moon romantically over Earth's past, despite your healthy interest in it. Nor do you stubbornly embrace the City culture of Earth's present day. We felt that people such as yourself were the ones that could lead Earthmen to the stars once more.

There are degrees of justice, Elijah. When the lesser is incompatable with the greater, the lesser must give way.

The robot said, 'I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of thi sevil into what you call good.' He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own owrds, he said, 'Go, and sin no more!

If you muster that courage to stand under fire and not go down, you will amass an inner strength that no one can touch. You won’t be another faceless, nameless, forgotten human in a long historical line of the defeated. You will be a steeled warrior, and a force to be forever reckoned with. And beneath the pain that lingers, you will have the comfort of knowing that you are strongest of all. That when others caved and broke, you kept fighting even against hopeless odds.” - Caleb

Your phraseology is obscure, but I think I understand.

The City was the acme of efficiency, but it made demands of its inhabitants. It asked them to live in a tight routine and order their lives under a strict and scientific control.

Despite being depicted in innumerable cartoons as apelike brutes living in caves, Neanderthals had brains slightly larger than our own.

Any technological advance can be dangerous. Fire was dangerous from the start, and so (even more so) was speech—and both are still dangerous to this day—but human beings would not be human without them.

My chest swelled, aching like shit, and everything washed over me at once. Her smell, her warmth, her hair and body… My lungs caved, and I didn’t know why, but it felt so fucking good. I wrapped my arms around her like a steel band, almost feeling relief at holding something—or someone—for the first time in forever.

They (Medievalists) are soft, dreamy people who find life too hard for them here and get lost in an ideal world of the past that never really existed.

Lamentarsi è una caratteristica innata della specie umana. Nel Secolo del Carbone la gente imprecava contro la macchina a vapore; in una commedia di Shakespeare un personaggio lamenta l'invenzione della polvere da sparo. Mille anni dopo ci si lamentava per la fabbricazione del cervello positronico.

A robot must not hurt a human being, unless he can think of a way to prove it is for the human being’s ultimate good after all.

But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever.

it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good.

Balcy had left the City and could not re-enter. The City was no longer his; the Caves of Steel were alien. This had to be; and it would be so for others and Earth would be bom again and reach outwards. His heart beat madly and the noise of life about him sank to an unheard murmur. He remembered his dream on Solaria and he understood it at last. He lifted his head and he could see through all the steel and concrete and humanity above him. He could see the beacon set in space to lure men outwards. He could see it shining down — the naked sun.

Bible: Various portions of it, when properly interpreted, contain a code of behaviour which many men consider best suited to the ultimate happiness of mankind.

There was no doubt about it: the City was the culmination of man’s mastery over the environment. Not space travel, not the fifty colonized worlds that were now so haughtily independent, but the City.

We were never under any delusions as to which was more important, an individual or humanity.

the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good.

Baley needed a friend and he was in no mood to cavil at the fact that a gear replaced a blood vessel in this particular one.

The division between human and robot is perhaps not as significant as that between intelligence and nonintelligence.

An unjust law,” said R. Daneel evenly, “is a contradiction in terms.

Better your own road to hell than another’s road to heaven,

What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood. It's what makes us men.

So, in a Civil Service where smooth and sociable performance was more useful than an individualistic competence, Enderby went up the scale quickly, and was at the Commissioner level when Baley himself was nothing more than a C-5.

Richards remembered the day - that glorious and terrible day - watching the planes slam into the towers, the image repeated in endless loops. The fireballs, the bodies falling, the liquefaction of a billion tons of steel and concrete, the pillowing clouds of dust. The money shot of the new millennium, the ultimate reality show broadcast 24-7. Richards had been in Jakarta when it happened, he couldn't even remember why. He'd thought it right then; no, he'd felt it, right down to his bones. A pure, unflinching rightness. You had to give the military something to do of course, or they'd all just fucking shoot each other. But from that day forward, the old way of doing things was over. The war - the real war, the one that had been going on for a thousand years and would go on for a thousand thousand more - the war between Us and Them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots, between my gods and your gods, whoever you are - would be fought by men like Richards: men with faces you didn't notice and couldn't remember, dressed as busboys or cab drivers or mailmen, with silencers tucked up their sleeves. It would be fought by young mothers pushing ten pounds of C-4 in baby strollers and schoolgirls boarding subways with vials of sarin hidden in their Hello Kitty backpacks. It would be fought out of the beds of pickup trucks and blandly anonymous hotel rooms near airports and mountain caves near nothing at all; it would be waged on train platforms and cruise ships, in malls and movie theaters and mosques, in country and in city, in darkness and by day. It would be fought in the name of Allah or Kurdish nationalism or Jews for Jesus or the New York Yankees - the subjects hadn't changed, they never would, all coming down, after you'd boiled away the bullshit, to somebody's quarterly earnings report and who got to sit where - but now the war was everywhere, metastasizing like a million maniac cells run amok across the planet, and everyone was in it.

Over thirty of the fifty Outer Worlds, including my native Aurora, were directly colonized by Earthmen. Is colonization no longer possible?” “Well …” “No answer? Let me suggest that if it is no longer possible, it is because of the development of City culture on Earth. Before the Cities, human life on Earth wasn’t so specialized that they couldn’t break loose and start all over on a raw world. They did it thirty times. But now, Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever.

There’s no way we can raise a positronic brain one inch above the level of perfect materialism. “We can’t, damn it, we can’t. Not as long as we don’t understand what makes our own brains tick. Not as long as things exist that science can’t measure. What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We’re forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can’t be understood. It’s what makes us men.

Some day, with all that the Cities could do, the available calories per person would simply fall below basic subsistence level.

We’re forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can’t be understood. It’s what makes us men.

they are trained from birth to accept authority.

But with the creature from worlds beyond space sitting in the midst of it,

To the philosophical mind, these items might seem scarcely worth any great trouble to acquire. Yet no one, however philosophical, could give up those privileges, once acquired, without a pang. That was the point.

Jimmy (to Allison):We'll be together in our bear's cave, and our squirrel's drey, and we'll live on honey, and nuts-lots and lots of nuts. And we'll sing songs about ourselves-about warm trees and snug caves, and lying in the sun. And you'll keep those big eyes on my fur, and help me keep my claws in order, because I'm a bit of a soppy, scruffy sort of a bear. And I'll see that you keep that sleek, bushy tail glistening as it should, because you're a very beautiful squirre, but you're none too bright either, so we've got to be careful. There are cruel steel traps lying about everywhere, just waiting for rather mad, slightly satanic, and very timid little animals.

there is something even higher than the justice which you have been filled with. There is a human impulse known as mercy; a human act known as forgiveness.” “I am not acquainted with those words, partner Elijah.” “I know,” muttered Baley. “I know.

She imagined Jack standing among the bins of nails and tool belts and the ranks of crowbars, unspoken to beyond the ordinary courtesies, seeming unaware of their awareness of him, watching flickering television in that cave full of the smells of leather and wood and oily metal, idle among all those implements of force and purpose, citified among the steel-toed boots and the work shirts. An odd place for a man to loiter who was so alive to embarrassment, so predisposed to sensing even the thought of rebuke.

But afterward he had grown to find her cheerful, tender hearted, and, finally, even pretty. He appreciated her cheerfulness particularly. His own sardonic view of life needed the antidote. But Jessie never seemed to mind his long grave face. "Oh, goodness," she said, "what if you do look like an awful lemon? I know you're not really, and I guess if you were always grinning away like clockwork, the way I do, we'd just explode when we got together. You stay the way you are Lije, and keep me from floating." And she kept Lije Baley from sinking down. He applied for a small Couples apartment and got a contingent admission pending marriage. He showed it to her and said, "Will you fix it so I can get out of Bachelor's, Jessie? I don't like it there." Maybe it wasn't the most romantic proposal in the world, but Jessie liked it.

Should the soul vanish from the earth, the motors would stop, because that is the power which keeps them going—not the oil under the floor under her feet, the oil that would then become primeval ooze again—not the steel cylinders that would become stains of rust on the walls of the caves of shivering savages—the power of a living mind—the power of thought and choice and purpose.

At any rate, without quite knowing what dissatisfied me about the robot stories I read, I waited for something better, and I found it in the December 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. That issue contained “Helen O’Loy” by Lester del Rey, a story in which a robot was portrayed sympathetically. It was, I believe, only his second story, but I was a del Rey fan forever after.

In the space of a single year, a crumbling rural village had sprouted an army town, like a great parasitical growth. The former peacetime aspect of the place was barely discernible. The village pond was where the dragoons watered their horses, infantry exercised in the orchards, soldiers lay in the meadows sunning themselves. All the peacetime institutions collapsed, only what was needed for war remained. Hedges and fences were broken or simply torn down for easier access, and everywhere there were large signs giving directions to military traffic. While roofs caved in, and furniture was gradually used up as firewood, telephone lines and electricity cables were installed. Cellars were extended outwards and downwards to make bomb shelters for the residents; the removed earth was dumped in the gardens. The village no longer knew any demarcations or distinctions between thine and mine.

In the caves there lived a man named Ji.23 He was good at guessing riddles because he was fond of pondering things. However, if the (290) desires of his eyes and ears were aroused, it would ruin his thinking, and if he heard the sounds of mosquitoes or gnats, it would frustrate his concentration. So, he shut out the desires of his eyes and ears and put himself far away from the sounds of mosquitoes and gnats, and by dwelling in seclusion and stilling his thoughts, he achieved comprehension. (295) But can pondering ren in such a manner be called true sublimeness? Mencius hated depravity and so expelled his wife—this can be called being able to force oneself.24 Youzi25 hated dozing off and so burned his palm to keep awake—this can be called being able to steel oneself. These are not yet true fondness. To shut out the desires (300) of one’s eyes and ears can be called forcing oneself. It is not yet truly pondering. To be such that hearing the sounds of mosquitoes or gnats frustrates one’s concentration is called being precarious. It cannot yet be called true sublimeness. One who is truly sublime is a perfected person. For the perfected person, what forcing oneself, (305) what steeling oneself, what precariousness is there? Thus, those who are murky understand only external manifestations, but those who are clear understand internal manifestations. The sage follows his desires and embraces all his dispositions, and the things dependent on these simply turn out well-ordered. What forcing oneself, what steeling (310) oneself, what precariousness is there? Thus, the person of ren carries out the Way without striving, and the sage carries out the Way without forcing himself. The person of ren ponders it with reverence, and the sage ponders it with joy. This is the proper way to order one’s heart.

Two days later, on August 17, Smith’s Cove was abuzz with activity. The bulldozer was scraping a deep pathway from the beach, past the beach shack, heading up toward the Cave-In Pit, and the pump was pulling water from the bottom of the freshly-dug shaft located partly up the hill. Bobby was working near the beach shack with Andrew Demont, Leonard Kaizer, and Cyril Hiltz--young, local men who were helping Bobby to clear brush and burn it in an empty 50-gallon drum that sat on the shoreline. Both Dunfield and Karl Graeser were also on site. The air was electric with optimism and urgency. My father needed to take the boat over to mainland so he could visit his bank in Chester before closing time--papers had to be signed before Dunfield’s funds could be released. Dad was running late, but before he went up to the cabin to change his clothes for the trip ashore, he decided to take one last look in the new shaft to see how well the pump was getting rid of water. This newest shaft was behind the beach shack at a point where the land had started to rise to go up to the clearing. The shaft was large and deep (10 feet by 30 feet by 27 feet deep) and had three or four feet of water in the bottom. Dad peered down into the shaft, and without a sound, he tumbled in. Bobby saw it happen, dropped the bushes he had in his hands, and raced over to help. Others did, too. Bobby started down the ladder, but suddenly fell into the shaft. Karl Graeser was right behind Bobby, and began to climb down, but he lost consciousness and slid into the shaft, too. Cyril Hiltz followed Karl, and Cyril’s cousin, Andrew Demont, was close behind. Leonard Kaizer was the last man to rush in to help the others. One-by-one, as each man tried to climb down the ladder into the shaft, he lost consciousness and fell in. Ed White, a fireman from Buffalo, was visiting the island that day with a group of friends. He heard the cries for help and rushed to the shaft. His wife pleaded with him not to go down, but White tied a handkerchief around his face and had someone lower him into the shaft. He was able to get a rope around Leonard Kaizer, so that those at the top could pull him out. Then White went after Andrew Demont, who was unconscious with his arms locked around a steel pipe, which supported him above water. Even in his unconscious state, Demont lashed out and punched White. But the fireman prevailed and got the rope harness around him so that he could be pulled from the shaft. Ed White was a hero. He saved Leonard Kaizer and Andy Demont that day. But he could do no more. By then, he, too, was feeling the effects of the invisible gas. On that fateful day, August 17, 1965, Cyril Hiltz, Karl Graeser, Bob Restall, Sr., and Bob Restall, Jr. all lost their lives. The coroner’s ruling was “death by drowning.

There was no present, no past, no future. No sadness, no sorrow, because those were ordinary little human emotions that required a frame of reference, and she had none to cling to. She had caved in, become a measureless void, no poles, no lines of latitude or longitude. She was an emptiness bigger than galaxies, unmapped and unmappable.

There had always been prophets of Malthusian doom in every generation since Medieval times and they had always proven wrong.

Winnipeg

Light your flame among us, R’hllor,” said the red priest. “Show us the truth or falseness of this man. Strike him down if he is guilty, and give strength to his sword if he is true. Lord of Light, give us wisdom.” “For the night is dark,” the others chanted, Harwin and Anguy loud as all the rest, “and full of terrors.” “This cave is dark too,” said the Hound, “but I’m the terror here. I hope your god’s a sweet one, Dondarrion. You’re going to meet him shortly.

And so, I come to the focus of my argument. I apologize. Even forcing my words into steel, sitting and scratching in this frozen cave, I am prone to ramble.

People sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they don't know how to fix themselves.

They are alive, she thought, but their soul operates them by remote control. Their soul is in every man who has the capacity to equal this achievement. Should the soul vanish from the earth, the motors would stop, because that is the power which keeps them going—not the oil under the floor under her feet, the oil that would then become primeval ooze again—not the steel cylinders that would become stains of rust on the walls of the caves of shivering savages—the power of a living mind—the power of thought and choice and purpose.

Efficiency had been forced on Earth with increasing population. Two billion people, three billion, even five billion could be supported by the planet by progressive lowering of the standard of living.

What is beauty, or goodness, or art, or love, or God? We’re forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can’t be understood. It’s what makes us men.

Aru stirred. Snatches of dreams and memories fluttered through her. Shadows. Darkness. The feeling of being gathered and held close… Someone in the dark speaking her name as if it were a question… “Arundhati?” A sudden rush of cold. Aru opened her eyes. She was in front of a dark cave. But she was not alone. There was another girl sitting across from her, the same age as Aru. She had long black hair, high cheekbones like a model, and catlike eyes. There was something uncannily familiar about her face. Aru felt as if she’d seen it before, only she didn’t know where. “I’m Kara,” the girl said. Aru raised her hands, struggling to break free, but her hands were tied and a steel chain attached her to the cave wall. She dimly remembered Mini screaming No, Aru! and the sensation of slick shadows hauling her off the hoverboard…. Vajra! she thought. She looked down and was flooded with relief when she saw her lightning bolt firmly attached to her wrist. “Where am I?” Kara smiled sympathetically. “You’re in the house of the Sleeper, Aru Shah.” “So, then, who are you?” Kara lifted her chin. “I’m his daughter.

Estamos constantemente al borde de lo incognoscible, e intentando entender lo que no puede ser entendido. Eso es lo que nos hambre hombres.

God went down to get your badge since you were in the cave so long.” Ruxs smirked. “You guys kiss and make up?” Steele swiveled around and leveled a hard look at him and replied with a clipped, “Yep.” Before

No one calls me by my first name but my grandma, and Ghost must not miss me caving for this kid because he chuckles.

The chronological order of the books, in terms of future history (and not of publication date), is as follows: The Complete Robot (1982). This is a collection of thirty-one robot short stories published between 1940 and 1976 and includes every story in my earlier collection I, Robot (1950). Only one robot short story has been written since this collection appeared. That is “Robot Dreams,” which has not yet appeared in any Doubleday collection. The Caves of Steel (1954). This is the first of my robot novels. The Naked Sun (1957). The second robot novel. The Robots of Dawn (1983). The third robot novel. Robots and Empire (1985). The fourth robot novel. The Currents of Space (1952). This is the first of my Empire novels. The Stars, Like Dust—(1951). The second Empire novel. Pebble in the Sky (1950). The third Empire novel. Prelude to Foundation (1988). This is the first Foundation novel (although it is the latest written, so far). Foundation (1951). The second Foundation novel. Actually, it is a collection of four stories, originally published between 1942 and 1944, plus an introductory section written for the book in 1949. Foundation and Empire (1952). The third Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1945. Second Foundation (1953). The fourth Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1948 and 1949. Foundation’s Edge (1982). The fifth Foundation novel. Foundation and Earth (1983). The sixth Foundation novel.

Earthmen are all so coddled, so enwombed in their imprisoning caves of steel, that they are caught forever.

Still, the forerunners of the stereotypical nuns with steel rulers are Plato’s Guardians in the Republic. They serve the same Platonic principle Origen extolled, that the Church, like the ideal polis, exists for the betterment of man.47 The Church’s job was to train our inner voice to answer to our faith, not as an alternative to our reason, but as its highest expression. It is that conviction that will give the Christian the courage to speak truth to power, whether we are speaking of Origen or Martin Luther King.

Elijah?

It symbolizes neither one nor the other, but a mixture of the two without priority

There’s only one explanation,” Sandy said as he scrambled back to join Mike. “The slide was covering the mouth of this cave. When the rocks started to give way, the entrance suddenly opened up and we fell in.” “And all that stuff passed right over our heads,” Mike said. “Looks like that’s it.” The two boys stared at each other in silence. “You know,” Sandy said quietly, “we’re a couple of pretty lucky guys.” “I’ll say! If we had been any other place when the slide started to go....” “We’d be down there at the bottom under a few hundred tons of rock,” Sandy finished.

Under The Octagon by Stewart Stafford Under the octagon of glass and steel, A careworn man sits at his desk and sighs, He longs to leave this place of chilly lies, And find a hidden treasure that is real. He knows a code that he can’t reveal, A sepulchre where the Holy Grail lies, He found it with his providence eyes, A numinous and haunting view that heals. He takes a penknife from his drawer and peels, His finger till he sees a key inside, He wraps his wound and leaves without a guide, He runs towards the garden, full of zeal. He finds the rhododendrons and the birch, He digs beneath the wisteria with care, Cracks open the tomb, and discovers there, A golden bird sitting upon its perch. "Back! Thou tomb-raiding thief." It squawks, its voice so stern, "Cleanse thyself, endeavour to learn. Do not touch the Grail without belief!" Caving in, he seals the grave, The aureate avian conveys his thanks, The plumage rejoining arcane ranks, The man seeks out a confessor's nave. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved

FOUNDATION

Dr. Fastolfe said, with obvious surprise, “Are you satisfied with life on Earth?” “We get along.

I tell you I know the type of people that become Medievalists. They’re soft, dreamy people who find life too hard for them here and get lost in an ideal world of the past that never really existed.

It’s a throwing stake,” she told me. “A vampire once tried to escape from me. He thought it would be safe, flying off in bat form. The fool. I hit him in the wing with one of these.” She held up the throwing stake, stroking its polished, red oak point. “The metal makes it heavy, so it flies better. The oak makes it lethal. The vampire was easy to trap once I took him down.” Without a flicker of hesitation, she took aim and threw the weapon straight into the heart of the bats’ roost. One of the bats dropped to the floor like dead fruit from a tree. The cave exploded with dark, flapping shapes. My heart skipped a beat as they screeched and squealed. “That’s how you kill a vampire,” Mum whispered triumphantly.

No robot built, of any type, could possibly hurt a human being. That was the First Law of Robotics: “A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Look at this man, his hand on you, anything I can use, Jacques ordered gruffly. He could feel her horror, her reluctance. I can’t, Jacques. I can’t think. It was true. Her mind was consumed with grotesque images of blood and death. This time it was not Gregori who took charge. Jacques gripped her mind in a hold of steel, forcing her compliance. He was far stronger than she had ever imagined him to be, and supremely confident in his abilities, even in the morning hours. The Carpathians men were coming closer, too. Even with the burden of protecting Byron, they were moving rapidly as a group toward the cabin. Mikhail reluctantly split off from the rest of them, Byron a dead weight in his arms, his path away from the forest and toward the cave of healing. But his concentration on his wife and child was total. He had no room for any other emotion. He kept their waning life force flickering in his mind, held them locked to him, giving them no chance to die before the healer was there to aid them.

Shea cried out but could not look away with Gregori forcing her to obey his command. Then suddenly, as Slovensky’s heart exploded violently out of his chest and he slumped forward, face down onto the floor, she was released. Wallace made strange sounds, little mewling noises interspersed with curses. He dragged Shea to her feet, forced her with him toward the door. Her back was to him, and for a moment Shea was curiously thankful. She had never killed or injured another human being in her life. She had taken an oath to save lives. Every instinct in her was to go to Raven, see if there was anything she could do. Even to go to the stick old man and try to aid him. Killing was utterly out of her realm. You did not kill him, Jacques said soothingly. I was the instrument you used, she protested. As Wallace dragged her outside, the light hit her eyes, and she cried out as a thousand knives seemed to pierce her skull. Look at this man, his hand on you, anything I can use, Jacques ordered gruffly. He could feel her horror, her reluctance. I can’t, Jacques. I can’t think. It was true. Her mind was consumed with grotesque images of blood and death. This time it was not Gregori who took charge. Jacques gripped her mind in a hold of steel, forcing her compliance. He was far stronger than she had ever imagined him to be, and supremely confident in his abilities, even in the morning hours. The Carpathians men were coming closer, too. Even with the burden of protecting Byron, they were moving rapidly as a group toward the cabin. Mikhail reluctantly split off from the rest of them, Byron a dead weight in his arms, his path away from the forest and toward the cave of healing. But his concentration on his wife and child was total. He had no room for any other emotion. He kept their waning life force flickering in his mind, held them locked to him, giving them no chance to die before the healer was there to aid them.

Somewhere in the plant (Baley had no idea exactly where) a pound of fissionable material was consumed each day. Every so often, the radioactive fission products, the so-called “hot ash,” were forced by air pressure through leaden pipes to distant caverns ten miles out in the ocean and a half mile below the ocean floor.

it is an advantage for the murderer to be in charge of the murder investigation.

If geography and time are the warp and weft structuring (art) history, perceptual culture is like the pile of a velvet cloth that, without altering the warp or weft of the fabric, reenchants its texture and depth. It treats Islam as the Simurgh, and objects as its feathers. Like the galleries in China full of representations futilely and obsessively trying to reconstruct the bird from its feathers, the museum is a monument to our inability to feel what we are trying to represent. And yet like the three princes seeking the hand of the Chinese princess in the gallery of creation, we can also discover through objects the spirit we can never expect to pin down in our hands. With these hopes tucked in between the warp of evidence and the weft of interpretation, this book would like to quote a certain textile from a very long time ago: I exist for pleasure; Welcome! For pleasure am I; he who beholds me sees joy and well-being. This book offers complex more than simple pleasures: its many questions diverge and converge, offering iridescence to our certainties. It puts forth the pleasure of using thought as steel wool polishing our mental acumen, enabling perception beyond predetermined realities. It may be that a barzakh exists somewhere between the secular and the sacred, a peninsula of understanding in which we enter the cave of our ghurba and become in the world but not of it. If we tread lightly with a pure heart cleansed in the mirror of curiosity and wonder, it may just open its doors a bit and let us explore the glory it holds inside.

From the wheel to the steel - from papyrus to kindle - from churchbell to doorbell - from holy books to comic books - from monotheism to secularism - from fundamentalism to humanism - from steam engine to jet engine - from cave painting to apple pencil - from antibiotics to antipsychotics - from embroidery to surgery - from moving pics to netflix - every single feat that we can think of, good or bad, is born of the neurons. In short, neurons can make the world or break the world.

There was no doubt about it: the City was the culmination of man’s mastery over the environment.

Remember, you once said, Lije, that people sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they don’t know how to fix themselves.