Pathfinder Quotes

By my reckoning, I'm about 100 kilometers from Pathfinder. Technically it's called "Carl Sagan Memorial Station." But with all due respect to Carl, I can call it whatever the hell I want. I'm the King of Mars.

For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.

It’s the same one I used to power the drill that destroyed Pathfinder. I call it my “lucky cable.

All he said was, “I believe in you, Sophie Foster,” as he raised his pathfinder up to the silvery glow of the moonlight. And Sandor added, “We all do.

Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.

A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone.

Naw. I think I’m growing on her. She hasn’t tried to escape for a whole week.

Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead.

But Father has also taught him: Treat a man as if he had a fine reputation to protect, and he will usually endeavor to deserve it.

How long will the patch take?” Venkat asked. “Should be pretty much instant,” Jack answered. “Watney entered the hack earlier today, and we confirmed it worked. We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch and reboots the rover, we should get a connection.” “Jesus, what a complicated process,” Venkat said. “Try updating a Linux server sometime,” Jack said.

And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler.

A pathfinder's job is hard enough — blazing trails where there are none, guided by nothing but hearsay and gut. While you're hacking your way through bracken, worrying about lurking beasts, all you can do is hope you had chosen the right direction.

A man without conscience is but a poor creature...

She smiled at me. We were all friends here. Morrolan carried Blackwand, which slew a thousand at the Wall of Barrit’s Tomb. Aliera carried Pathfinder, which they say served a power higher than the Empire. Sethra carried Iceflame, which embodied within it the power of the Dzur Mountain. I carried myself rather well, thank you.

A person is what he says and does; that's how you learn whether his reputation was earned or manufactured.

Everything just changed. Watney’s headed for Pathfinder.

We are pathfinders on a mission, Beholders following the Light, Runners gunning for the prize and Fighters remaining focused...You have been described, do not accept any other description!

No one can know a false thing, one can only believe it with certainty until it is contradicted. (Page 7)

Patience is the greatest of virtues in a woodsman.

She likes us,” said Umbo. “I know, I could feel it too,” said Rigg. “She’s really glad to have us here. I think she loves us like her own children.” “Whom she murdered and cut up into the stew.” “They were delicious.

Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage.

I care not for your envy, or your hypocrisy, or even for your human nature.

How did yo do that?" Ahmose titled his head. "Im am a pathfinder," he said simply. "But that's not a path. It's a door." "Yes. I found the path of weakness in the door.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.

Maybe I will do what I want with my life! The only problem is that I have no idea what I want to do with it.

Whoop-de-do," said Ram. "What?" "I'm celebrating." "Was that irony or loss of mental function?" asked the expendable. "Was that a rhetorical questions, a bit of humor, or a sign that you are losing confidence in me?" "I have no confidence in you, Ram," said the expendable. "Well, thanks." "You're welcome.

(Rigg) had often complained that all these languages were useless, and Father had only said, "A man who speaks but one language understands none.

We are all human, and all do wrong.

You remember to trust in Heavenly Father. Life is a blessing, but it is also a testing. Take the one as you do the other and trust Him who allows all. Trust what Creator is doing, though we cannot understand it or see the full path.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man , more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road. 'How do you get to West Egg village?' he asked helplessly. I told him. Ans as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He has casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

Government is all show when it isn't murder in the dark ... or soldiers in the open.

He committed the crime of stupidity while under my command," said Citizen. "Oh my," said Rigg. "They're handing out the death penalty for that these days?

One day she was going to get control of herself and stop doing stupid shit to save ungrateful idiots.

I have passed days thinking of these matters, out in the silent woods, and I have come to the opinion, boy, that as Providence rules all things, no gift is bestowed without some wise and reasonable end.

But she knew better than anybody, home wasn't a place; it's a state of mind. It's the people you're with. And for her, those people were all here.

The true hero of the American utopia is neither the cowboy nor the soldier, but the pioneer, the pathfinder, the person who 'takes his body, where his eyes have been'.

In me was shaping a yearning for a kind of consciousness, a mode of being that the way of life about me had said could not be, must not be, and upon which the penalty of death had been placed. Somewhere in the dead of the southern night my life had switched onto the wrong track and without my knowing it, the locomotive of my heart was rushing down a dangerously steep slope, heading for a collision, heedless of the warning red lights that blinked all about me, the sirens and the bells and the screams that filled the air.

We have discussed your definition, analyzed its ramifications to a reasonable depth, and accept it," said the expendable. "Meaning I gave you what you wanted?" "Ambition and desire are human traits. You gave us what we lacked.

I know everything I need to know already," Rigg always said... To which Father always replied,"See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet." "So tell me," said Rigg. "I would but you're too ignorant to understand the reasons why your ignorance is a fatal disease...

You could accomplish some truly heinous things once emotion has been tucked away. Anger dies, eventually, if you sate it with enough blood. Hate fades. Grief dwindles. There are reasons behind emotion. Such is not the case with true detachment. “Where

I've thought of all the questions," said Father. "That only means you've stopped trying to think of new ones.

Saving the human race is a frantic one. Or a tedious one. It all depends on what stage of the process you're taking part in.

...for flowers that will bloom in a garden will die on a heath...

Life is sweet, even to the aged; and, for that matter, I've known some that seemed to set much store by it when it got to be of the least value.

But I'm three times your age or more and my brain is worn out and full up. I don't have much room to tuck new things square inside; they just cling to the outside for a while and drop off.

I tried to send a message, but Pathfinder isn’t responding. That’s not a big surprise. It’s powered directly from the Hab, and the Hab is offline. During my brief, panicked scramble outside, I saw that Pathfinder was right where I left it, and the debris didn’t reach that far out. It should be fine, once I get it some power.

Ah's me! if we could be what what we wish to be, instead of being only what we are, there would be a great difference in our characters and knowledge and appearance. One may be rude and coarse and ignorant, and yet happy, if he does not know it; but it is hard to see our own failings in the strongest light, just as we wish to hear the least about them.

Could you possibly be a little more incoherent?" asked Olivenko. "There are bits of this I'm almost understanding, and I'm sure that's not what you have in mind.

But even the falsest of men pay so much homage to truth as to seem its votaries.

Things start where you don't know and end up where you know. When you know is when you ask, How did this start?

The point was that she was right, and they were wrong. If they’d listened, everybody would still be alive. They didn’t, so they were dead. Not her problem. She’d done her job.

We are who we are. When changes come, we start with what we are right then, and then we work to try to become whoever we need to be.

hoist Pathfinder up the side. I don’t want to break it.

for the pathfinders and those who empower them to discover the space where we each can belong

I want no thunder or lightning to remind me of my God, nor am I as apt to bethink on most of all His goodness in trouble and tribulations as on a calm, solemn, quiet day in a forest, when His voice is heard in the creaking of a dead branch or in the song of a bird, as much in my ears at least as it is ever heard in uproar and gales.

Our writers have always pointed the way for us, Mr. Grey, they’ve formed our thinking and feeling, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Chekhov, Bunin …” He added with pride, “Writers with us are pathfinders.

I have attended church-service in the garrisons, and tried hard...to join in the prayers...but never could raise within me the solemn feelings and true affection that I feel when alone with God in the forest. There I seem to stand face to face with my Master; all around me is fresh and beautiful, as it came from His hand; and there is no nicety or doctrine to chill the feelings. No no; the woods are the true temple after all, for there the thoughts are free to mount higher even than the clouds.

Walking about streets, going to church of Sundays, and hearing sermons, never yet made a man of a human being. Send the boy out upon the broad ocean, if you wish to open his eyes, and let him look upon foreign nations, or what I call the face of nature, if you wish him to understand his own character.

Fear will be the fuel for all your success, and the root cause of all your failures, and the underlying dilemma in every story you tell yourself about yourself. And the only chance you’ll have against fear? Follow it. Steer by it. Don’t think of fear as the villain. Think of fear as your guide, your pathfinder—your Natty

But there’s more to attraction than the exterior packaging. The color of your eyes has been burned into my brain since that man ripped away your hood in Edgecomb. The feel of your body when I caught you on the wagon has tormented me in dreams ever since. I never know what is going on behind those eyes of yours.” He gave her a wicked smile and Shea’s breath caught at the sight. “You are a constantly evolving puzzle. It drives me mad, and for someone like me, who can guess an opponent’s move before they even make it, that is more attractive than a fragile thing like appearance could ever be. You ask why you. How could it be any but you?

I suppose this means you can swim after all. Or am I supposed to tow you?" "If you really try," said Loaf, grinning, "you might not die.

Then, as Father had trained him, Rigg thought past his feelings.

See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet.

We're an ecological disaster." "Exactly," said the expendable.

I know you know, and you know that I know that you know. It spirals on from there, so let's just assume the dot dot dot.

Rigg," said Father, "you're so smart and so dumb at the same time that it almost takes my breath awway

Witt paused by Dane as he followed her down the hill. “Perhaps you shouldn’t do any more thinking. It really doesn’t suit you.

...every period of life has its necessities, and at forty-seven it's just as well to trust a little to the head.

It takes an enormous amount of internal security to begin with the spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, the spirit of creativity. Without doubt, you have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness. You become a trailblazer, a pathfinder. You open new possibilities, new territories, new continents, so that others can follow.

Tis true, the Delawares call me Deerslayer, but it's not so much because I'm pretty fatal with the venison as because that while I kill so many bucks and does, I've never yet taken the life of a fellow-creatur'. They say their traditions do not tell of another who had shed so much blood of animals that had not shed the blood of man.

Venkat pulled out his cell phone. “We lost contact with Pathfinder in 1997. If he can get it online again, we can communicate. It might just need the solar cells cleaned. Even if it’s got a bigger problem, he’s an engineer!” Dialing, he added, “Fixing things is his job!

And that’s exactly what had happened. Power traveled from the drill line’s positive lead, through the workbench, through the Mylar, through Pathfinder’s hull, through a bunch of extremely sensitive and irreplaceable electronics, and out the negative lead of Pathfinder’s power line.

So that's it?" asked the expendable. "Final decision," said Ram. "And it's the right one." "Why do you think so?" "Because we live or die, we'll learn something important from jumping into the fold. Thousands of future travelers will either follow us or not. But if we don't make the jump, we'll learn nothing, have no new options." "A lovely speech. It has been sent back to Earth. It will inspire millions." "Shut up," said Ram.

...for though the quiet of deep solitude reigned in that vast and nearly boundless forest, nature was speaking with her thousand tongues in the eloquent language of night in a wilderness. The air sighed through ten thousand trees, the water ripped, and at places even roared along the shores; and now and then was heard the creaking of a branch or a trunk, as it rubbed against some object similar to itself, under the vibrations of a nicely balanced body.

But I am designed to last forever," said the expendable, "if not interfered with." "Isn't that nice? Expendable yet eternal. You'll be able to go back and observe any part of human history that you wish. Watch the pyramids being unbuilt. See the ice ages go and come in reverse. Watch the de-extinction of the dinosaurs as a meteor leaps out of the Gulf of Mexico." "I will have no useful task. I will not be able to help the human race in any way. My existence will have no meaning after you are dead." "Now you know how humans feel all the time.

So this is love, he said to himself, trying to examine his own overwhelming feelings with the rational fragment of his mind. This is the powerful, horrible longing that made Mother marry that miserable tyrant I had to call Father. How many unbelievably stupid heroes in stories did insanely dangerous things because they were in love? More to the pint, how many insane things am I going to do because of it?

It worked! Holy shit, it worked! I just suited up and checked the lander. The high-gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal. They know I’m alive! I don’t even know what to say. This was an insane plan and somehow it worked! I’m going to be talking to someone again. I spent three months as the loneliest man in history and it’s finally over. Sure, I might not get rescued. But I won’t be alone. The whole time I was recovering Pathfinder, I imagined what this moment would be like. I figured I’d jump up and down a bit, cheer, maybe flip off the ground (because this whole damn planet is my enemy), but that’s not what happened. When I got back to the Hab and took off the EVA suit, I sat down in the dirt and cried. Bawled like a little kid for several minutes. I finally settled down to mild sniffling and then felt a deep calm. It was a good calm.

I'm just saying that I...I regret that everybody else has nineteen chances, and only I am limited to a single chance for my genes to continue." "Because you believe your genes would confer a great blessing upon the human race." Ram thought about this for a moment, "I suppose that's what every adolescent male believes with his whole heart.

I didn't know that empty rationalization was part of your programming," said Ram. "We would not be fit companions for human beings without it.

Like climbing a cliff, thinking is a perilous activity for those unused to it.

Another dream had been shattered.

A wise leader doesn’t just follow but discover the path.

How did I become the one to make this decision for everyone?

People are never fair, even when they try to be...and few are the ones who try.

I hear they whip you for stealing." "Or put you in jail, or sell you into slavery, or kill you, depending on the town and what mood they're in.

You could accomplish some truly heinous things once emotion has been tucked away. Anger

Actually it is quite devastating to realise how few people ever think at all. They mostly take their ideas from what they are told on the wireless, television, or in the newspapers, from people who are prepared to take a reasonable fee. To suggest anything different makes you tread on many corns of vested interest. No professional pathfinder likes you for doing it.

So our reliance on the computers caused the failure of the mission?" asked the expendable. "The mission didn't fail," said Ram. "It succeeded nineteen times. We're just the exhaust trail.

Watney entered the hack earlier today, and we confirmed it worked. We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch and reboots the rover, we should get a connection.” “Jesus, what a complicated process,” Venkat said. “Try updating a Linux server sometime,” Jack said. After a moment of silence, Tim said, “You know he was telling a joke, right? That was supposed to be funny.” “Oh,” said Venkat. “I’m a physics guy, not a computer guy.” “He’s not funny to computer guys, either.

People can immediately react in a sudden emergency, run away, yell, kick, and bite and try to protect themselves in some way. When the threat is quiet and remote or bearable in intensity, then they try to adapt to it.

When, that evening, Vatanen slowly ski’d back from Vittumainen Ghyll to Laahkima Gorge, accompanied by his hare, he no longer thought about Kaartinen’s strange world. There was a half-moon, and the stars were glimmering faintly in the frozen evening. He had his own world, this one, and it was fine to be here, living alone in one’s own way. The hare ambled silently along the trail ahead of the skier, like a pathfinder. Vatanen sang to it.

The paradigm shift is coming. It’s written into the dialectic. We are the pathfinders of the dialectic. We are the vanguard of the enlightenment. Someone has to be way ahead of the game to lead everyone else forward. The pioneers, the scouts, the adventurers, the radicals, the explorers, those that first step into the unknown along paths never trod before, surrounded everywhere by darkness, must be of exceptional character, boldness, curiosity and courage.

You guessed it! And you say you aren't creative!" "We did not guess anythiung. We deduced it from the plethora of data you provided us, both consciously and unconsciously." "And yet you couldn't detect the irony in my enthusiasm." "We detected it. As information, however, it was worthless.

KNOWN ABILITIES: Empath [DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING ELSE MY MOM TELLS YOU] RESIDENCE: The Shores of Solace and Candleshade [ANYONE WANNA TRADE LIVES WITH ME?] IMMEDIATE FAMILY: Lord Cassius Sencen (father); Lady Gisela Sencen (mother) [AKA: WORST. PARENTS. EVER!] MATCH STATUS: Unregistered [TRY NOT TO BE TOO HEARTBROKEN, PEOPLE] [THOUGH I GOTTA SAY: I DON’T REALLY GET WHY EVERYONE PAYS SO MUCH ATTENTION TO THIS.] EDUCATION: Current Foxfire prodigy [AND PROUD DETENTION RECORD–HOLDER] NEXUS: No longer required [BECAUSE I’M COOL LIKE THAT] PATHFINDER: Not assigned. Restricted to Leapmasters and home crystals. [HA, THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK!] SPYBALL APPROVAL: None [BUT I HAVE FRIENDS WITH CONNECTIONS, THAT’S ALL I’M SAYING.…] MEMBER OF THE NOBILITY: No [THANK GOODNESS] TITLE: None [UM, HELLO, WHAT ABOUT LORD HUNKYHAIR? THAT’S A THING!] NOBLE ASSIGNMENT: None [MASTER MISCHIEF-MAKER] SIGNIFICANT CONNECTIONS: Fealty-sworn member of the Black Swan; former Wayward at Exillium; son to one of the leaders of the Neverseen [SWORN PROTECTOR OF THE MYSTERIOUS MISS F] ASSIGNED BODYGUARD(S): Ro (ogre) [AND SHE KNOWS, LIKE, 500,000 WAYS TO KILL YOU! SO IT’S REALLY NOT A GOOD IDEA TO MESS WITH US!]

Pathfinder LOG: SOL 0 BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED TIME 00:00:00 LOSS OF POWER DETECTED, TIME/DATE UNRELIABLE LOADING OS… VXWARE OPERATING SYSTEM (C) WIND RIVER SYSTEMS PERFORMING HARDWARE CHECK: INT. TEMPERATURE: −34°C EXT. TEMPERATURE: NONFUNCTIONAL BATTERY: FULL HIGAIN: OK LOGAIN: OK WIND SENSOR: NONFUNCTIONAL METEOROLOGY: NONFUNCTIONAL ASI: NONFUNCTIONAL IMAGER: OK ROVER RAMP: NONFUNCTIONAL SOLAR A: NONFUNCTIONAL SOLAR B: NONFUNCTIONAL SOLAR C: NONFUNCTIONAL HARDWARE CHECK COMPLETE BROADCASTING STATUS LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL… LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL… LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL SIGNAL ACQUIRED…

If our systems should fail, we would faithfully report the fact. We have no ego-protection that would cause us to deceive you or ourselves. Whereasyou are engaged in ego-protection right now. You thought you would be necessary during the voyage, and you now discover that you were not. This makes you feel bad.

Are you asking us to impregnate all the females on all the ships with your DNA, so that you can be sure of having progeny?" "No!" said Ram in horror. "What a terrible thing for a woman, to wake up pregnant- a violation of trust. It would destroy all nineteen colonies." "Not to mention being embarrassing when all the babies look like you.

I had no idea we planned to be so ruthless." "It was not publicized or even discussed with the political arm of the colonization program. Ruthlessness was necessary but wins no votes." "But this is not our world, to treat however we want!" "Visiting here as students of an alien evolutionary tradition would not be either cost-effective or, ultimately, successful. We would inevitably contaminate Garden, or worse yet, become contaminated and bring potentially deadly Gardenian life forms back to Earth. The three continental preserves will be sufficient to allow biologists to study alien life at some point in the future. And if you really thought we would colonize this world without making it 'ours', you'd be far too naive to command this expedition." "I...didn't realize..." "You didn't think about it at all," said the expendable. "The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community." "And you aren't morally blind?" "We see the moral ironies very clearly. We simply don't care.

Beautiful prairies, bordered by lofty hills sparsely scattered with timber, stretch around. The massive fronds of the Pinus Ponderosa replace the elegant leaflets of the Cedar, no longer found save rarely, perchance, in some deep dell moistened by a purling streamlet. Groves of aspen appear here and there. The Balsam Poplar shows itself at intervals only, along the streams. The white racemes of the Service-berry flower, and the chaste flowers of the Mock Orange, load the air with their fragrance. Every copse re-echoes with the low drumming of the ruffed Grouse; the trees resound with the muffled booming of the Cock of the Woods. The Pheasant shirrs past; the scrannel-pipe of the larger Crane -- ever a watchful sentinel -- grates harshly on the ear; and the shrill whistle of the Curlew as it soars aloft aides the general concert of the re-opined year. I speak still of Spring; for the impressions of that jocum season are ever the most vivid, and naturally recur with the greatest force in after years. -- Alexander Caulfield Anderson describing the new brigade trail between Lac la Hache and Kamloops.