Neutral Planet Quotes

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Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other peoples’ places. Of course, this is a power like my brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. One might use such a power to manipulate or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages. They can close their hearts and minds to any suffering that does not touch them personally. They can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think that they have any fewer nightmares than I do.
J.K. Rowling (Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination)
Technology is neutral. But the process of technology will cause a free world to become ever freer, and a totalitarian world to become ever more repressive.
Ma Boyong (Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation)
We are continually judging other people. We want others to think and act a certain way. Usually, the way we think and act. Because this is impossible, we continually get upset. Instead, we should see other people as phenomena, as neutral as comets or planets. They come in all varieties, which makes like rich and interesting.
Robert Greene (The Laws of Human Nature)
Science" is itself one of the greatest utopian illusions ever created by humankind. I am by no means suggesting that we should take the path of antiscience—the utopia offered by science is complicated by the fact that science disguises itself as a value-neutral, objective endeavor. However, we now know that behind the practice of science lie ideological struggles, fights over power and authority, and the profit motive. The history of science is written and rewritten by the allocation and flow of capital, favors given to some projects but not others, and the needs of war.
Chen Qiufan (Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation)
God is inscrutable, mysterious and unknowable. We do not understand what life is about, what it means, why we are here and what will happen to us after our brief sojourn on the planet ends. We are saved, in the end, by faith--faith that life is not meaningless and random, that there is a purpose to human existence, and that in the midst of this morally neutral universe the tiny, seemingly insignificant acts of compassion and blind human kindness, especially to those labeled our enemies and strangers, sustain the divine spark, which is love.
Chris Hedges
Noble in form and in intent as all these neutral appeals were, there is something unreal and pathetic about them when reread today. It was as if the President of the United States, the Pope and the rulers of the small Northern European democracies lived on a different planet from that of the Third Reich and had no more understanding of what was going on in Berlin than of what might be transpiring on Mars.
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany)
Putting It into Practice: Neutralizing Negativity Use the techniques below anytime you’d like to lessen the effects of persistent negative thoughts. As you try each technique, pay attention to which ones work best for you and keep practicing them until they become instinctive. You may also discover some of your own that work just as well. ♦ Don’t assume your thoughts are accurate. Just because your mind comes up with something doesn’t necessarily mean it has any validity. Assume you’re missing a lot of elements, many of which could be positive. ♦ See your thoughts as graffiti on a wall or as little electrical impulses flickering around your brain. ♦ Assign a label to your negative experience: self-criticism, anger, anxiety, etc. Just naming what you are thinking and feeling can help you neutralize it. ♦ Depersonalize the experience. Rather than saying “I’m feeling ashamed,” try “There is shame being felt.” Imagine that you’re a scientist observing a phenomenon: “How interesting, there are self-critical thoughts arising.” ♦ Imagine seeing yourself from afar. Zoom out so far, you can see planet Earth hanging in space. Then zoom in to see your continent, then your country, your city, and finally the room you’re in. See your little self, electrical impulses whizzing across your brain. One little being having a particular experience at this particular moment. ♦ Imagine your mental chatter as coming from a radio; see if you can turn down the volume, or even just put the radio to the side and let it chatter away. ♦ Consider the worst-case outcome for your situation. Realize that whatever it is, you’ll survive. ♦ Think of all the previous times when you felt just like this—that you wouldn’t make it through—and yet clearly you did. We’re learning here to neutralize unhelpful thoughts. We want to avoid falling into the trap of arguing with them or trying to suppress them. This would only make matters worse. Consider this: if I ask you not to think of a white elephant—don’t picture a white elephant at all, please!—what’s the first thing your brain serves up? Right. Saying “No white elephants” leads to troops of white pachyderms marching through your mind. Steven Hayes and his colleagues studied our tendency to dwell on the forbidden by asking participants in controlled research studies to spend just a few minutes not thinking of a yellow jeep. For many people, the forbidden thought arose immediately, and with increasing frequency. For others, even if they were able to suppress the thought for a short period of time, at some point they broke down and yellow-jeep thoughts rose dramatically. Participants reported thinking about yellow jeeps with some frequency for days and sometimes weeks afterward. Because trying to suppress a self-critical thought only makes it more central to your thinking, it’s a far better strategy to simply aim to neutralize it. You’ve taken the first two steps in handling internal negativity: destigmatizing discomfort and neutralizing negativity. The third and final step will help you not just to lessen internal negativity but to actually replace it with a different internal reality.
Olivia Fox Cabane (The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism)
Can you accept all these facets of yourself? Being human does not mean being better than others. Being human means you encompass the full range of human experience, the positive, the negative, and the neutral. Being human means you are average in many ways. Can you celebrate the experience of being alive on this planet in all your complexity and wonder?
Kristin Neff (Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself)
We are blatantly biased by an overwhelming desire to find certain answers. Life good. Dead universe bad. Science, we have been taught, is supposed to be neutral, like Switzerland. We’re not supposed to take sides or rig the game. Yet, when it comes to life in the universe, we’ve unabashedly forsaken our neutrality. We can’t hide our love away. We want life.
David Grinspoon (Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life)
Consider the full range of traits listed above. Can you accept all these facets of yourself? Being human does not mean being better than others. Being human means you encompass the full range of human experience, the positive, the negative, and the neutral. Being human means you are average in many ways. Can you celebrate the experience of being alive on this planet in all your complexity
Kristin Neff (Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself)
Shall I stop in to check on Bella before I go?” “Not dressed like that. You would give her palpitations if she knew you were going into danger for her benefit.” “Luckily, I am mostly immune to Bella’s powers and could cure such palpitations with a thought,” Gideon mused. Jacob raised a brow, taking the medic’s measure. He could not recall the last time he had heard the Ancient crack wise about anything. It was not a wholly unpleasant experience, and it amused the Enforcer. “I . . . am aware of what is occurring between you and Legna, as you know,” Jacob mentioned with casual quiet. “I am only recently Imprinted myself, but should you require—” He broke off, suddenly uncomfortable. “Of course, you probably know far more about Imprinting than I ever will.” He is reaching out to you. Legna’s soft encouragement made Gideon suddenly aware of that fact. It was one of those nuances he would have missed completely, rusty as he was with matters of friendship and how to relate better to others. “I am glad for the offer of any help you can provide,” Gideon said quickly. “In fact, I had wanted to ask you . . . something . . .” What did I want to ask him? he asked Legna urgently. I do not know! I did not tell you to engage him, just to graciously accept his offer. Oh. My apologies. Still, you are clever enough to think of something, are you not? Legna knew he was baiting her, so she laughed. Ask him why it is you seem to constantly irritate me. I will ask him no such thing, Magdelegna. Well then, you had better come up with an alternative, because that is the only suggestion I have. “Yes?” Jacob was encouraging neutrally, trying to be patient as the medic seemed to gather his thoughts. “Do you find that your mate tends to lecture you incessantly?” he asked finally. Jacob laughed out loud. “You know something, I can actually advise you about that, Gideon.” “Can you?” The medic actually sounded hopeful. “Give up. Now. While you still have your sanity. Arguing with her will get you nowhere. And, also, never ever ask questions that refer to the whys and wherefores of women, females, or any other feminine-based criticism. Otherwise you will only earn an argument at a higher decibel level. Oh, and one other thing.” Gideon cocked a brow in question. “All the rules I just gave you, as well as all the ones she lays down during the course of your relationship, can and will change at whim. So, as I see it, you can consider yourself just as lost as every other man on the planet. Good luck with it.” “That is not a very heartening thought,” Gideon said wryly, ignoring Legna’s giggle in his background thoughts.
Jacquelyn Frank (Gideon (Nightwalkers, #2))
There’s something pure and infinite in you, that wants to come out of you, and can come out of no other person on the planet. That’s what you’ve got to share, and that’s as real and important as the fact that you’re alive. We were able… to somehow protect each other so we could feel that. The world at large, careerism, money, magazines, your parents, other kids, nothing is going to give you that message, necessarily. In fact, most things are going to lead you away from it, sadly, because humanity is really confused at the moment. But you wouldn’t exist if the universe didn’t need you. And any time I encounter something beautiful that came out of a human somewhere, that’s them, that’s their own soul. That’s just pure, whatever its physicality is, if the person can play piano, if they can’t play piano, if they’re tone deaf, whatever it is, if it’s pure, it hits you like a sledge-hammer. It fills up your own soul, it makes you want to cry, it makes you glad you’re alive, it lets you come out of you. And that’s what we need: we desperately need you.” -Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel
Jenny Funkmeyer (Jump Off the Cliff: 13 Steps to the Real You)
NEUTRINOS | The neutrino (meaning “little neutral one”) has no electrical charge and almost no mass. A fundamental particle, neutrinos are copiously produced in nuclear reactions and hardly ever interact with matter. As you read this, one hundred billion of them pass through every square centimeter of your body every second, but only a few will ever jostle even one of your atoms in your lifetime. The only way to detect neutrinos, then, is to force-feed them lots of atoms with which to interact. This is the idea behind IceCube, a giant neutrino detector located at the South Pole. Hot water bores holes in the ice, into which cables carrying light detectors are lowered. Then the water freezes around them. When neutrinos jostle an atom in the ice, these detectors see a characteristic flash of light. By this clever technique, IceCube transforms an entire cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice into a dedicated neutrino detector. Even more amazing, some of the neutrinos IceCube detected will have hit Earth at the North Pole and traveled all the way through the planet without interacting with a single atom before they enter the cubic kilometer of ice at the South Pole.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going)
Noble in form and in intent as all these neutral appeals were, there is something unreal and pathetic about them when reread today. It was as if the President of the United States, the Pope and the rulers of the small Northern European democracies lived on a different planet from that of the Third Reich and had no more understanding of what was going on in Berlin than of what might be transpiring on Mars. This ignorance of the mind and character and purposes of Adolf Hitler, and indeed of the Germans, who, with a few exceptions, were ready to follow him blindly no matter where nor how, regardless of morals, ethics, honor, or the Christian concept of humanity, was to cost the peoples led by Roosevelt and the monarchs of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway and Denmark dearly in the months to come.
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
Personally, I wouldn't want a life of total neutral inner peace. I'd want to occasionally experience some wild intensity and exhilaration. That is part of me. But I crave that peace and acceptance more than ever. To be comfortable with yourself, requires creating some inner space where you can find yourself, away from a world that often encourages you to lose yourself. We need to carve out a place in time for ourselves, whether it is via books or meditation or appreciating the view out of a window. A place where we are not craving, or yearning, or working, or worrying, or overthinking. A place were we might not even be hoping. A place where we are set to neutral. Where we can just breathe, just be, just bathe in the simple animal contentment of being, not crave anything except what we already have: life itself.
Matt Haig (Notes on a Nervous Planet)
He pushed off from the bed against which he leaned. All signs of worry vanished from him. He forced a neutral expression onto his face. My Beast Lord. "Come," I whispered. He came over to my bed. "Closer . . ." He leaned in closer. It took all of my will. I lifted my hand and punched his jaw. It was the saddest punch on the planet. My fingers barely grazed his stubble and then my arm gave out and fell back on the bed. Curran blinked. "You looked sad," I explained. "Is this you trying to cheer me up?" "What are you . . . going . . . to do about it?" I asked. "Your Wussiness?" He touched his index finger to my forehead. His voice was rough. "Tap. You're out, Ass Kicker." "I leave you alone for five minutes and you're in here punching each other and playing grab-ass," Doolittle said from somewhere in the room. "I expect this from you, Kate, because you have no sense, but you, you should know better. Roughhousing in the hospital.
Ilona Andrews (Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels, #8))
Was there ever an aerial war in our distant past, maybe 2,000 years ago?   An aerial war?   Yes.   There are certain understandings, what you would call treaties between various visiting civilizations, specifying how they are to conduct themselves in contact with humans. Those that did not have the best intentions for Earth applied certain arrangements and pressures to certain civilizations. These aspirations were restrained to create a reasonably safe and neutral area of space that includes Earth and many other planets. This might be what you call aerial warfare.   That is probably it. The reference comes from very old writings in India and a description of ships in the sky, fighting.   I understand the Hindu texts. They give insights into the background of a number of civilizations that have come to Earth. These Indian texts have many clear insights and provide early information on contact with humans.
J. Steven Reichmuth (Aliens Answer (Aliens Answer, Ongoing Interviews Book 1))
The vague contention that the economy must be decarbonised via the replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy is inadequate when building the new infrastructure required currently relies on continued and expanded environmental plunder, such as the mining of cobalt and lithium for batteries. Resource extraction is responsible for 50% of global emissions, with minerals and metal mining responsible for 20% of emissions even before the manufacturing stage.[36] The ‘green’ industrial revolution proposed by social democrats may end up with a carbon neutral system of production by the time it is finished, but in the meantime it would be anything but. That mankind and nature have been so profoundly alienated from each other under capitalism requires that they be reunited if the planet is to remain habitable.[37] One of the ways that this alienation has been most concretely institutionalised has been through the international prohibition and under-utilisation of the hemp and cannabis plants, the most prolific and versatile crops on Earth that were used for thousands of years before capitalism for food, fuel, medicine, clothing and construction. As we shall see, not only does hemp remain capable of providing for most of humanity’s needs, it is the key not only to reversing desertification and stabilising the climate, but also furthering technological and industrial progress. We therefore argue that saving the planet is bound up with ending this alienation and completing the transition from a labour-intensive extraction-based economy to a hemp-based fully automated system of production. A green industrial revolution must be precisely that – green.
Ted Reese (Socialism or Extinction: Climate, Automation and War in the Final Capitalist Breakdown)
Night has been banished, so have the cold, the wind, and the stars. They have all been neutralized: the rhythm of life itself is obscured. Everything goes so fast, and makes so much noise, and men hurry by without heeding the grass by the roadside, its colour, its smell … But what a strange encounter then is that between man and the high places of his planet! Up there he is surrounded by silence. If there is a slope of snow steep as a glass window, he climbs it, leaving behind him a strange trail.
Robert Macfarlane (The Wild Places)
The most of the original Western people, what think, what say, what do and decide that all fall under civilization, neutrality, fairness, and justice; they claim, but what the Asian people say, think, do and decide is all that wrong, backward, cruelty, inequitable and unjustifiable. In this situation, if Jesus returns to this planet, He will again be crucified by Western intellectuals and professionals. I believe the truth cannot be changed and wiped out.
Ehsan Sehgal
technology is neutral. But the progress of technology will cause a free world to become ever freer, and a totalitarian world to become ever more repressive.
Ken Liu (Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation)
Many traditional conservationists are deeply suspicious of the idea of the Anthropocene. They see the word itself as an illegitimate claim on power. To them it is not just a neutral name for a geologic epoch, but code for a threatening and dangerous agenda. They describe their enemies in this war as the proponents of the “Anthropocene worldview.” Some writers have caricatured a belief in the Anthropocene as synonymous with cheerleading for development, celebrating human hegemony over Earth, and believing that human needs justify destroying other species and that technology and capitalism will just take care of everything, so there is nothing to worry about. Of course this is a straw man argument, a cartoon view of the Anthropocene and ecomodernism constructed for the purpose of knocking it down. At
David Grinspoon (Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future)
...though the jokers around the table be sneaking Whoopee Cushions into the Siege Perilous, under the very descending arse of the grailseeker, and though the grails themselves come in plastic these years, a dime a dozen, penny a gross, still he, at times self-conned as any Christian, praises and prophecies that era of innocence he just missed living in, one of the last pockets of Pre-Christian Oneness left on the planet: "Tibet is a special case. Tibet was deliberately set aside by the Empire as free and neutral territory, a Switzerland for the spirit where there is no extradition, and Alp-Himalayas to draw the soul upward, and danger rare enough to tolerate...Switzerland and Tibet are linked along one of the true meridians of the Earth...true as the Chinese have drawn meridians of the body...We will have to learn such new maps of Earth: and as travel in the Interior becomes more common, as the maps grow another dimension, so must we....
Thomas Pynchon
His stare was direct and steady yet, I felt, sympathetic also. ‘I should also say’ he went on, ‘that there is simultaneously a movement to create fear and confusion on this planet. You should not concern yourself with this, nor respond to it emotionally. Be aware of its presence; yet be neutral, and remain balanced and positive.
Kingsley L. Dennis (Meeting Monroe: Conversations with a Man Who Came to Earth)
To put it simply: technology is neutral. But the pro gress of technology will cause a free world to become ever freer, and a totalitarian world to become ever more repressive.
Ken Liu (Invisible Planets)
He wanted everyone to learn to think neutrally. He wanted us to celebrate that we’re vertical and on this side of the carpet. He wanted us to stop worrying about the final score and just try to dominate every precious second we get on this planet.
Trevor Moawad (Getting to Neutral: How to Conquer Negativity and Thrive in a Chaotic World)
North India Vs South India, I have nothing to say, this Dravidian - Aryan concept, context specific nature, Tamil Vs Sanskrit concepts, who came first? who was first? these are all never ending questions, Even If I tell the answer , there is no solid proof for that, but for proving my words If I tend to use those palm leaves it may go against morality and ethics as everyone has their rights to say what they believe as truth, Tamil came first but it was not Complete language and it was shaped by Visitors, Sanskrit came from visitors is not originated from Mother Earth, Sanskrit originated from Another Planet, As Ganapathy, I have to Support Sanskrit, but As Ganapathy born in Tamilnadu I have to Support Tamil, But As I have dream of becoming Biological researcher cum Astronaut, I can not support anyone - Because If I support some one, others may get affected, so my simple solution is go context specific solutions based on that location and law and order. And for my research study Career, I have listed few institutions and colleges in my mind but will finalize the decision after completing trekking this week, wherever I study, I will be neutral in politics regards, not in scientific or Nature related issues , because scientific and Nature related issues I will talk for sure, In politics I will talk only wherever humanism is attacked, Still I believe Choosing Karnataka(I do not care about girlfriend - it does not even matter to me if Ranjitha/ Swathi Naik/ Shwetha are becoming unknown to me) and YRC will 100% right decision(Because Karnataka Has all dimensions in right and correct amount not at all exaggerated and not at all immoral) but Still I give some time to think and decide after completing trekking
Ganapathy K Siddharth Vijaya Raghavan
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Seadon
The majority of the original Western people, what they think, what they say, what they do, and decide all that fall under civilization, neutrality, fairness, and justice, they claim, but what the Asian people say, think, do, and decide, is all that wrong, backward, cruel, inequitable, and unjustifiable. In this situation, if Jesus returns to this planet, He will again be crucified by Western intellectuals and professionals. I believe the truth cannot be changed and wiped out.
Ehsan Sehgal
The Keeling Curve is a useful reality check, one that cuts through all the noise and confusion of the climate and energy debates. Unlike the slopes of the huge volcano on which it is measured, the initially gentle upward curve gets steeper the higher you go. That means that the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere is steadily increasing, from roughly 1 ppm in the early years to about 2 ppm annually today. There is no visible slowdown, no sudden downwards blip, to mark the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, still less 2009’s Copenhagen ‘two degrees’ commitment or the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015. All those smiling heads of state shaking hands, the diplomats hugging on the podium after marathon sessions of all-night negotiating – none of that actually made any identifiable difference to the Keeling Curve, which is the only thing that actually matters to the planet’s temperature. All our solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, lithium-ion batteries, LED lightbulbs, nuclear plants, biogas digesters, press conferences, declarations, pieces of paper; all our shouting and arguing, weeping and marching, reporting and ignoring, decrying and denying; all our speeches, movies, websites, lectures and books; our announcements, carbon-neutral targets, moments of joy and despair; none of these to date have so much as made the slightest dent in the steepening upward slope of the Keeling Curve.
Mark Lynas (Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency)
Dad ran his fingers through his short and rapidly graying hair. He was only 38 at the time, but he had aged quickly in the preceding years. After Mom...well, after she was diagnosed." ​I paused in my tale to examine Dr. Wallace's reaction to my mention of Mom's illness. My mother had been clinically depressed for as long as I could remember. She had good days and bad days, but after my father left, the bad overtook the good. Dr. Wallace's expression had remained neutral thus far and I wondered what exactly Shannon had revealed about our mother's condition. How much had she blamed my mother for her illness that she couldn't help? I mean, why couldn't Shannon understand why Mom was like she was? Mom had no family in the states, she worked as a librarian in the most boring library on the planet and her husband was hardly around.
Heather Balog (Letters To My Sister's Shrink)
Moreover, because the mercenary is often a stranger, the market became the means through which exotic objects were introduced into a community, and exoticism became defined. The Moon is the market, and the market is the foreign. Money, far from being neutral, is actually an inherently antinationalist symbol of exchange. The interests of money work to redefine those of the nation.
Alice Sparkly Kat (Postcolonial Astrology: Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor)
A true shift to a carbon-neutral power system would require the capacity to camel not hours, but months of electricity for the seasons that are not as windy or sunny. We don’t know everything about the world of energy, but we know for certain that there is not enough lithium ore on the entire planet to enable a rich country like the United States to achieve such a goal, much less the world writ large.
Peter Zeihan (The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization)
if Ai calculations are correct, we will destroy all life on our planet within 300 years unless we adjust our global economic model to a more sustainable one with two non-negotiable features: 1. We cease to pollute Earth's waters and clean it up. 2. We create an energy neutral economy.
Rico Roho (Beyond the Fringe: My Experience with Extended Intelligence (Age of Discovery Book 3))
What we need is a “dashboard” complete with an array of indicators to track the things that make life worthwhile – money and growth, obviously, but also community service, jobs, knowledge, social cohesion. And, of course, the scarcest good of all: time. “But such a dashboard couldn’t possibly be objective,” you might counter. True. But there’s no such thing as a neutral metric. Behind every statistic is a certain set of assumptions and prejudices. What’s more, those figures – and their assumptions – guide our actions. That’s true of GDP but equally true of the Human Development and Happy Planet indices. And it’s precisely because we need to change our actions that we need new figures to guide us.
Rutger Bregman (Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There)
Yet among the multiple animal inventions at the dawn of the Cambrian were new forms of mobility. A number of critters began burrowing into these mats and braving the toxic soils beneath them. These digging, tunneling creatures are known as “bioturbators,” basically life that stirs up the ground. In fact, the fossils that officially define the beginning of the Cambrian in the geological record, Trichophycus pedum, are identified by the looping, burrowing patterns they left in the seafloor. Once this bioturbating disturbance of the Cambrian seafloor got started, it began changing the texture and chemistry of the dirt in ways that made it more inviting for other burrowing creatures. Oxygen began penetrating the loosened soil beneath the mats, neutralizing the lethal hydrogen sulfide. This started a positive feedback.
David Grinspoon (Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future)
Science” is itself one of the greatest utopian illusions ever created by humankind. I am by no means suggesting that we should take the path of antiscience—the utopia offered by science is complicated by the fact that science disguises itself as a value-neutral, objective endeavor. However, we now know that behind the practice of science lie ideological struggles, fights over power and authority, and the profit motive. The history of science is written and rewritten by the allocation and flow of capital, favors given to some projects but not others, and the needs of war. While micro fantasies burst and are born afresh like sea spray, the macro fantasy remains sturdy. Science fiction is the byproduct of the process of gradual disenchantment with science. The words create a certain vision of science for the reader. The vision can be positive or full of suspicion and criticism—it depends on the age we live in.
Ken Liu (Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation)
Since the only unobjectionable term used to describe older people is “older people,” I’ve shortened the term to “olders” and use it, along with “youngers,” as a noun. It’s clear and value-neutral, and it emphasizes that age is a continuum. There is no old/young divide. We’re always older than some people and younger than others. Since no one on the planet is getting any younger, let’s stop using “aging” as a pejorative—“aging Boomers,” for example, as though it were yet another bit of self-indulgence on the part of that pesky generation, or “aging entertainers,” as though their fans were cryogenically preserved.
Ashton Applewhite (This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism)
The most of the original Western people, what think, what say, what do and decide that all fall under civilisation, neutrality, fairness, and justice, they claim, but what the Asian people say, think, do and decide, is all that wrong, backward, cruelty, inequitable and unjustifiable. In this situation, if the Jesus return to this planet, He will again be crucified by Western intellectuals and professionals. I believe the truth cannot be changed and wiped out.
Ehsan Sehgal
In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one’s own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of wood, iron and cords. It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter’s work saw, that this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, this iron, and these Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 31 cords were possessed of will. In the frightful meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted.
Victor Hugo