Sheep Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Sheep. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.
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Sue Grafton
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If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
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George Washington
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A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
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Edward R. Murrow
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It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
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William Ralph Inge
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Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
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James Bovard (Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty)
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The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists.
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
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A lion doesn't concern itself with the opinion of sheep.
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George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
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You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Why be the sheep when you can be the wolf?
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R.L. LaFevers (Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, #1))
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Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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One must always be careful of books,' said Tessa, 'and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.' 'I'm not sure a book has ever changed me,' said Will. 'Well there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn oneself into an entire flock of sheep-' 'Only the very weak minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry,' said Tessa, determined not to let him run wildly off with the conversation.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
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Men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will soon follow. -Lady Whistledown
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Julia Quinn (The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1))
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I can’t believe I didn’t see him for what he was from the beginning: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And now I’m the sheep pretending to be a wolf.
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Victoria Aveyard (Red Queen (Red Queen, #1))
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We are a nation of sheep, and someone else owns the grass.
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George Carlin
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Body cells replace themselves every month. Even at this very moment. Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter
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Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power)
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Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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I fear being like everyone I hate, I fear failure, I fear losing control. I love balancing between chaos and control with everything I do. I always have a fear of going one way or another, getting lost in something, or losing everything to get lost in. And I fear being a completely acceptable sheep in society.
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Marilyn Manson
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To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep herding.
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Ezra Pound
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A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.
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Agatha Christie (The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot, #6))
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Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true Messiahs - Cursed are the god-adorers, for they shall be shorn sheep!
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
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Look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes...
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
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Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.
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Isaiah Berlin
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The light of morning decomposes everything.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.
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Jess C. Scott (Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody)
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I'm a sheep wearing wolves' clothing in a pack of wolves.
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Pierce Brown (Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1))
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[how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep.
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Thomas More (Utopia)
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Josh: "What is this thing?" Gasper: "It's a Yeti. An abominable snowman." Biff: "This is what happens when you fuck a sheep?" Josh: "Not an abomination, abominable.
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Christopher Moore (Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal)
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And if you say that's because you lot barged into her home like a herd of mentally deficient sheep, I'm disowning all three of you.
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Julia Quinn (The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1))
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It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.
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Benito Mussolini
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I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
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Alexander the Great
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I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize?
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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Do you miss Wales?” Tessa inquired. Will shrugged lightly. β€œWhat’s to miss? Sheep and singing,” he said. β€œAnd the ridiculous language. Fe hoffwn i fod mor feddw, fyddai ddim yn cofio fy enw.” β€œWhat does that mean?” β€œIt means β€˜I wish to get so drunk I no longer remember my own name,’ Quite useful.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
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The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.
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Hugh MacLeod
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I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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If a wolf attacks his sheep, the shepherd kills the wolf, but he eats the sheep when he's hungry.
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Charlie Higson (The Enemy (The Enemy, #1))
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You mean old books?" "Stories written before space travel but about space travel." "How could there have been stories about space travel before --" "The writers," Pris said, "made it up.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me?
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John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
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The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.
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Terry Pratchett (Small Gods (Discworld, #13))
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Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them.
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Vladimir Nabokov (Lectures on Literature)
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Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.
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Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
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Reluctantly, I pulled out my necklace and showed it to them. Samuel frowned. The little figure was stylized; I suppose he couldn't tell what it was at first. "A dog?" asked Zee, staring at my necklace. "A lamb," I said defensively, tucking it safely back under my shirt. "Because one of Christ's names is 'The Lamb of God.'" Samuel's shoulders shook slightly. "I can see it now, Mercy holding a roomful of vampire at bay with her glowing sheep." I gave his shoulder a hard push, aware of the heat climbing to my cheeks, but it didn't help. He sang in a soft taunting voice, "Mercy had a little lamb...
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Patricia Briggs (Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, #1))
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The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.
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Osho (Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously)
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I don't know, there's something about you. Say there's an hourglass: the sand's about to run out. Someone like you can always be counted on to turn the thing over.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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Safety is a fence, and fences are for sheep.
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Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
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Dance," said the Sheep Man. "Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop.
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Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
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Pity the nation whose people are sheep, and whose shepherds mislead them. Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced, and whose bigots haunt the airwaves. Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture. Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own and no other culture but its own. Pity the nation whose breath is money and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed. Pity the nation β€” oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away. My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
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Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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In case you're wondering, the underside of a sheep doesn't smell that great. Imagine a winter sweater that's been dragged through the mud and left in the laundry hamper for a week. Something like that.
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Rick Riordan (The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2))
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Insomnia I cannot get to sleep tonight. I toss and turn and flop. I try to count some fluffy sheep while o'er a fence they hop. I try to think of pleasant dreams of places really cool. I don't know why I cannot sleep - I slept just fine at school.
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Kathy Kenney-Marshall
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You should never trust a wolf in sheep's clothing. Because the only thing the wolf will ever want to do is break you.
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Rachel E. Carter (First Year (The Black Mage, #1))
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We've become a nation of wolves, ruled by sheep. Owned by swine, overfed, and put to sleep. While the media elite declare what to think, I'll be wide awake, on the edge, and on the brink.
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Otep Shamaya
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Most people would rather be sheep than stand on their own with antlers on.
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Tori Amos
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<> Why are you lying awake, thinking that you’re a terrible person? <> To keep my mind occupied when I can’t sleep. Some people count sheep. I self-loathe.
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Rainbow Rowell (Attachments)
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People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep.
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James Joyce (Ulysses)
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Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere Mary went, the lights became erratic.
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David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
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I think if human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn't life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don't they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you'd meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to - like talking to dogs.
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Douglas Coupland (The Gum Thief)
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Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.
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Vernon Howard
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Butch nodded as if he knew exactly what was doing. "Like I said, my man, it's whatever. You and me? Same as always, no matter who you screw. Although… if you're into sheep, that would be tough. Don't know if I could handle that.
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J.R. Ward (Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #5))
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Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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It's the basic condition of life to be required to violate our own identity.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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You pile of stones, you waste, you desolation, I'll stuff you with misery till it comes out of your eyes. I'll change your heart into green grass, and all you love into a sheep. I'll turn you into a bad poet with dreams.
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Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1))
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For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it's not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It's not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It's no more serious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he'd doing - that isn't important? If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that's enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself 'My flower's up there somewhere...' But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it's as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn't important?
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
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We laugh at sheep because sheep just follow the one in front. We humans have out-sheeped the sheep, because at least the sheep need a sheep dog to keep them in line. Humans keep each other in line. And they do it by ridiculing or condemning anyone who commits the crime, and that’s what it’s become, of being different.
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David Icke
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Whenever I meet people for the first time, I get them to talk for ten minutes. Then I size them up from the exact opposite perspective of all they’ve told me. Do you think that’s crazy? β€œNo,” I said, shaking my head, β€œI’d guess your method works quite well.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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He could not stand. It was not That he could not thrive, he was born With everything but the will – That can be deformed, just like a limb. Death was more interesting to him. Life could not get his attention.
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Ted Hughes (Season songs)
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I never felt like that before. Maybe it could be depression, like you get. I can understand how you suffer now when you're depressed; I always thought you liked it and I thought you could have snapped yourself out any time, if not alone then by means of the mood organ. But when you get that depressed you don't care. Apathy, because you've lost a sense of worth. It doesn't matter whether you feel better because you have no worth.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.
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Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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But [Pooh] couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep the more he couldn't. He tried counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh could bear it no longer.
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A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1))
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My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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Will grinned. β€œSome of these books are dangerous,” he said. β€œIt’s wise to be careful.β€β€œOne must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, β€œand what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.β€β€œI’m not sure a book has ever changed me,” said Will. β€œWell, there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn oneself into an entire flock of sheepβ€”β€β€œOnly the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry,” said Tessa
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
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Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Sky is not a limit for me; because I have no limit for myself in life. Because life is a world full of risk taking and possibilities. No matter how hard or easy life is; I will always find a way to enjoy myself; even in the mist of circumstances; because problems is a sense of adventure in sheep's clothing.
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Temitope Owosela
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As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.
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Wendell Berry (Jayber Crow)
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Why do you have to be the same as the others? ...Most of them are stupid.
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Ken Follett (Winter of the World (The Century Trilogy #2))
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The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.
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C.S. Lewis
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You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean before they came here I could stand it... But now it has changed. You can't go back, he thought. You can't go from people to nonpeople." - J.R. Isidore
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Emigrate or Degenerate.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Mors certa, vita incerta,
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.
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Shunryu Suzuki (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice)
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Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?' I ask him. 'Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So your job is to see that they're all right, not that you are - just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed his sheep, not himself.
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Thomas More (Utopia)
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Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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Everything is true,' he said. 'Everything anybody has ever thought.' 'Will you be all right?' 'I'll be all right,' he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures.
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned, Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see in infrared, How I hate the night. He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.
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Douglas Adams (Life, the Universe and Everything (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #3))
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Maybe I'll go where I can see stars, he said to himself as the car gained velocity and altitude; it headed away from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation to the north. To the place where no living thing would go. Not unless it felt that the end had come.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. - Leisure
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W.H. Davies (Common Joys and Other Poems)
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Thank you, Adam,” I told him. β€œThank you for tearing Tim into small Tim bits. Thank you for forcing me to drink one last cup of fairy bug-juice so I could have use of both of my arms. Thank you for being there, for putting up with me.” By that point I wasn’t laughing anymore. β€œThank you for keeping me from being another of Stefan’s sheepβ€”I’ll take pack over that any day. Thank you for making the tough calls, for giving me time.” I stood up and walked to him, leaning against him and pressing my face against his shoulder. β€œThank you for loving me.” His arms closed around me, pressing flesh painfully hard against bone. Love hurts like that sometimes.
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Patricia Briggs (Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson, #4))
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Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else's behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.
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George K. Simon Jr. (In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing With Manipulative People)
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The night had fallen. I had let my tools drop from my hands. Of what moment now was my hammer, my bolt, or thirst, or death? On one star, one planet, my planet, the Earth, there was a little prince to be comforted. I took him in my arms, and rocked him. I said to him: "The flower that you love is not in danger. I will draw you a muzzle for your sheep. I will draw you a railing to put around your flower. I will --" I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more. It is such a secret place, the land of tears.
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
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There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots as mad as Swing, with a view of the world just as rigid and unreal, who were on the side of what they called 'the people'. Vimes had spent his life on the streets, and had met decent men and fools and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People. People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn't be a revolution or a riot. It'd be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn't try to bite the sheep next to them.
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Terry Pratchett (Night Watch (Discworld, #29; City Watch, #6))
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We find that at present the human race is divided into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians'; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off under the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare. It is pleasant to have command, observes Sancho Panza, even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politicians raise their banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders; if communism, commissars. Nothing will be different, except the name. The fools will be still fools, the knaves still leaders, the results still exploitation. As for the wise man, his lot will be much the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death in a garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated.
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T.H. White (The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King)
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I was twenty-one at the time, about to turn twenty-two. No prospect of graduating soon, and yet no reason to quit school. Caught in the most curiously depressing circumstances. For months I'd been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill. In the autumn, everything took on a desolate cast, the colors swiftly fading before my eyes. The sunlight, the smell of the grass, the faintest patter of rain, everything got on my nerves.
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Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase (The Rat, #3))
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War seems like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe. They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now, They take the wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half helm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world. And the man breaks.
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George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4))
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...out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs...out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him. He carried a whip in his trotter. There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything-in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened-they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of- "Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!" It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.
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George Orwell (Animal Farm)
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Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more." "I see." The girl regarded him uncertainly, not knowing whether to believe him. Not sure if he meant it seriously. "There's the First Law of Kipple," he said. "'Kipple drives out nonkipple.' Like Gresham's law about bad money. And in these apartments there's been nobody here to fight the kipple." "So it has taken over completely," the girl finished. She nodded. "Now I understand." "Your place, here," he said, "this apartment you've picked--it's too kipple-ized to live in. We can roll the kipple-factor back; we can do like I said, raid the other apts. But--" He broke off. "But what?" Isidore said, "We can't win." "Why not?" [...] "No one can win against kipple," he said, "except temporarily and maybe in one spot, like in my apartment I've sort of created a stasis between the pressure of kipple and nonkipple, for the time being. But eventually I'll die or go away, and then the kipple will again take over. It's a universal principle operating throughout the universe; the entire universe is moving toward a final state of total, absolute kippleization.
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Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
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is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well
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George R.R. Martin