Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.

Roy Batty - Blade Runner (inspired from Philip K. Dick)

"Savages."
Again, when people like Mrs Whitlow use this term they
are not, for some inexplicable reason, trying to suggest that
the subjects have a rich oral tradition, a complex system of
tribal rights and a deep respect for the spirits of their an-
cestors. They are implying the kind of behavior more
generally associated, oddly enough, with people wearing a
full suit of clothes, often with the same insignia.

The last continent - Terry Pratchett

The world is a sacred place and a sacred process,
and we are part of it.

Jared Osborne - The Story Of B - Daniel Quinn

"Now we've got a truth to die for!"
"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for."

"Slave is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave," said Vorbis.
"So I understand," said the Tyrant. "I imagine that fish have no word for water."

"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot
easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to
work every day and has a job to do.

Small Gods - Terry Pratchett

"J'ai mal."
"Tu ne savais pas que ça faisait très mal, la liberté ?"
"Non."

Roma et Ania, p. 172 - Aux yeux la lune - Michel Jeury

Le vrai problème qui se pose aux civilisations n'est pas d'assurer la maîtrise de la raison sur les passions, mais d'équilibrer les conflits qui opposent les passions entre elles : principe de réalité et principe de plaisir, instinct de vie et instinct de mort, ça et surmoi, etc.

Alain-Gérard Slama ; "Historiens, à vos divans !", L'Histoire ; n°246, p. 57, septembre 2000.

Et, continuellement, ce rêve s'élargissait, s'embellissait, d'autant plus séducteur, qu'il montait plus haut dans l'impossible.

Des hommes poussaient, une armée noire, vengeresse, qui germait lentement dans les sillons, grandissant pour les récoltes du siècle futur, et dont la germination allait bientôt faire éclater la terre.

p. 222 et p. 594 (Folio classique) - Germinal - Émile Zola

"Les hommes ne sont pas mes semblables, ils sont ceux qui me regardent et qui me jugent ; mes semblables, ce sont ceux qui m'aiment et qui ne me regardent pas, qui m'aiment contre tout, qui m'aiment contre la déchéance, contre la bassesse, contre la trahison, moi et non ce que j'ai fait ou ferai, qui m'aimeraient tant que je m'aimerais moi-même -- jusqu'au suicide compris..."

"Aucun homme ne peut parler des femmes, cher, parce qu'aucun homme ne comprend que tout nouveau maquillage, toute nouvelle robe, tout nouvel amant, proposent une nouvelle âme..."

"Ne croyez-vous pas, cher, que les femmes ne se donnent jamais (ou presque) et que les hommes ne possèdent rien ? C'est un jeu : "Je crois que je l'a possède, donc elle croit qu'elle est possédée..." Oui ? Vraiment ? Ce que je vais dire est très mal, mais croyez-vous que ce n'est pas l'histoire du bouchon qui se croyait tellement plus important que la bouteille ?"

"Il comprenait maintenant qu'accepter d'entraîner l'être qu'on aime dans la mort est peut-être la forme totale de l'amour, celle qui ne peut pas être dépassée."

pp. 57, 117, 120, et 204 (Folio) - La condition humaine - André Malraux

Il y a dans ce besoin d'identifier toujours un niveau d'explication supérieur au-dessus du niveau nécessaire pour comprendre les choses, une fâcheuse habitude que l'on retrouve dans toute la pensée structuraliste.

Au sujet de Kuhn ; Ludovic Bot ; Cours "Philosophie des Sciences et de l'Action" ; p.58, année 2000-2001

Pour gagner en connaissances, ajouter des éléments chaque jour. Pour gagner en sagesse, retirer des éléments chaque jour.

Lao Tzu (philosophe Chinois)

Prends de la hauteur, reste propre. Élève-toi au-dessus de l'absurdité humaine, des intrigues et des querelles mesquines, n'oublie pas de contempler, solitaire et silencieuse, la lumière de l'univers.

Docteur Yoshida - Quatre cents milliards d'étoiles - Paul J. McAuley

It is no more crazy than a dog finding a rainbow. Dogs are colourblind, Gretchen. They don't see colour. Just like we don't see time. We can feel it, we can feel it passing, but we can't see it. It's just like a blur. It's like we're riding in a supersonic train and the world is just blowing by, but imagine if we could stop that train, eh, Gretchen? Imagine if we could stop that train, get out, look around, and see time for what it really is? A universe, a world, a thing as unimaginable as colour to a dog, and as real, as tangible as that chair you're sitting in. Now if we could see it like that, really look at it, then maybe we could see the flaws as well as the form. And that's it; it's that simple. That's all I discovered. I'm just a... a guy who saw a crack in a chair that no one else could see. I'm that dog who saw a rainbow, only none of the other dogs believed me.

Stewart - Kate & Leopold - Steven Rogers

En somme, il n'y a pas d'espace ni de temps, seulement un être vivant qui se meut, et l'espace-temps naît avec lui.

Tianyi - Le Dit de Tianyi - François Cheng, Le Livre de Poche, p. 28-29

At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminate place, predictable in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. Between that universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order.

—Analysis of the Tyrant,
the Taraza File:
BG Archives

Heretics of Dune - Frank Herbert, Ace Science Fiction, p. 123

"That does not surprise me. Trust is not... it's not something we think about very often, but we depend on if for everything worthwhile. We all deal in trust, Clothar—people's lives are founded on trust. D'you understand that?"
"I think so."
"It's true. We form our own opinions of the folks we live among, the friends and neighbours and companions and soldiers with whom we share our lives, and we trust them to behave in certain ways—as they do us—with honesty and dignity and respect for themselves and for their neighbours. And based upon that trust, that mutuality of of trust and common interest, we make laws and rules to govern how we all live with one anther. But these monsters I speak of now, monsters like Clodas, are governed by now laws, no rules. They are predators, wild beasts who prey upon honest, ordinary men as victims—perceiving them and treating them as weaklings and helpless fools created solely to fulfill their needs. They have—they know—no honesty, these creatures. Worse, they have no understanding of what honesty is, and that, alone, makes them dangerous to all who cross their paths. They see no worth in trust, because they themselves have no belief in it. It is alien to their nature, and therefore they exploit the trust of other people as a fatal flaw."
"By far the worst part of such beings, however, is that they quickly learn to keep their true natures hidden from the eyes and knowledge of others. They learn to ape the manners and behaviour of others unlike themselves, behaving outwardly as they believe others think they ought to behave, and concealing their own monstrousness. Their entire existence is a lie. They deal in a kind of treachery that ordinary men cannot imagine, and that treachery grants them a power against which no one else can be prepared."

King Ban and Clothar - Clothar the Frank - Jack Whyte, Viking Canada, p. 80-81

Some people never observe anything. Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.

Reverend Mother Taraza - Heretics of Dune - Frank Herbert, Ace Science Fiction, p. 146

No wonder the gods are departing, he thought. We have driven them away. Once, every tree out there was holy—ever tree and every strand of grass and clod of earth. The very stones were holy and everything that lived, no matter how small or large... every elephant and every ant—every man and every woman. All were holy. Everything—the sea—the sky—the sun—the moon—the wind—the rain—the fairest and the worst of days... All of it gone and only one deaf God, who cannot see, remains—claiming all of creation as His own. If people would invest one hundredth of their devotion to this God in the living brothers and sisters amongst whom they stand, we might have a chance of surviving one another. As it is...

Mr. Pilgrim - Pilgrim - Timothy Findley, Harper Collins, p. 575

Evil empires often bound themselves in web of hate toward fabricated enemies, and none in the history of the world were better at it than the drow.

The Dark Elf Trilogy - Roger A. Salvatore, The Dark Elf Trilogy Collector's Edition, Wizard of the Coast, p. 53

Je veux dire que la connaissance opère obligatoirement un changement chez ceux qui la possèdent. Une fois que l'on sait, on agit en fonction de cette connaissance, qu'il s'agisse de la garder pour soi ou de la transmettre à d'autre qui, à leur tour, seront changés.

Tommy - Taltos - Anne Rice, Fleuve Noir, p. 147

Le moyen fait partie de la vérité, aussi bien que le résultat. Il faut que la recherche de la vérité soit elle-même vraie ; la recherche vraie, c'est la vérité déployée, dont les membres épars se réunissent dans le résultat.

Karl Marx - Les Choses - Georges Perec, J'ai Lu, p. 185

What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.

Laia Aseio Odi - The Day before the Revolution - Ursula K. le Guin, "The Locus Awards", EOS, p. 66

There would not be slums like this, if the Revolution prevailed. But there would be misery. There would always be misery, waste, cruelty. She had never pretended to be changing the human condition, to be Mama taking tragedy away from the children so they won't hurt themselves. Anything but. So long as people were free to choose, if they chose to drink flybane and live in sewers, it was their business. Just so long as it wasn't the business of Business, the source of profit and the means of power for other people.

Laia Aseio Odi - The Day before the Revolution - Ursula K. le Guin, "The Locus Awards", EOS, p. 67