Caesar, Gaius Julius (False Quote).

Beware of the leader, who strikes the war drum in order to transfer the citizens into patriotic glow, patriotism is indeed a double-sided sword. It makes the blood so boldly, like it constricts the intellect. And if the striking of the war drum reached a fiebrige height and the blood is cooking and hating, and the intellect is dismissed, the leader doesn't need to reject the citizens rights. The citizens, cought by anxiety and blinded through patriotism, will subordinate all their rights to the leader and this even with happy courage. Why do I know that? I know it, because this is what I did. And I am Gajus Julius Cäsar.

All bad precedents began as justifiable measures.

Cage, John.

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

Campbell, Joseph

The idea of the gentle heart involves a sense of responsibility to the person. If that is not there, you have not got love, you've got something else. If that's there, it will last. Lust doesn't, no responsibility there. In marriages that go when the children go, the parents' sense of responsibility was to the children, not to each other, and when that was gone, the link was gone.

If you follow your bliss,
You will always have your bliss,
money or not.

If you follow money,
you may lose it,
and you will have nothing.

Campbell, Thomas. Lochiel’s Warning

Coming events cast their shadows before.

Camus, Albert.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game

"Somebody done a dance on your head, mama," Alai said. "Somebody eated your face."

"There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will ever tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the only rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher." -- Mazer Rackham to Ender Wiggin.

Card, Orson Scott. Seventh Son

Useful - now there's something. Your mind might make a connection that is useful. But true is another matter. True implies that you have found a connection that exists independent of your apprehension of it, that would exist whether you noticed it or not.

The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

"Chesire Puss," she began, rather timidly, ... "Would you tell me, Please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where -" said Alice

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"- so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Carruth, William Herbert.

A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod -
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.

Carson, Johnny.

If God didn't want man to hunt, he wouldn't have given us plaid shirts.

Carver, Raymond

Oftentimes a writer doesn't know what he's going to say until he sees what he said.

Castaneda, Carlos.

• The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked to himself.
• A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.
• A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.
• Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.'

Celtic Motto.

Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.

Chang Chou.

When you're betting for tiles in an archery contest, you shoot with skill. When you're betting for fancy belt buckles, you worry about your aim. And when you're betting for real gold, you're a nervous wreck. Your skill is the same in all three cases - but because one prize means more to you than another, you let outside considerations weigh on your mind. He who looks too hard at the outside gets clumsy on the inside.

Chin, Frank.

Life is war. The war is to maintain personal integrity in a world that demands betrayal and corruption.

Chuang-Tzu.

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.
The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.
The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.

Churchill, Winston

• From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

• Lady Astor: Sir, If you were my husband, I would poison your drink.
  Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.

  Lady Astor: Sir, you are drunk.
  Churchill: Yes, madam, I am, and you are ugly. But in the morning I shall be sober.

• Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

• Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

• All the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind.

• A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

• The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery.

• Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

• We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

• The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

• Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.

• Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.

Chomsky, Noam.

This is a very fundamentalist society. It's like Iran in its degree of fanatic religious commitment. For example, I think about 75% of the US population has a literal belief in the devil.

Clancy, Tom. Debt of Honor

Daughters, he told himself, were God's revenge on you for being a man: you lived in mortal fear that they might accidentally encounter somebody like - yourself at that age

Clarke, Arthur C.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Clarke, Tom.

Every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile.

Clinton, Bill.

The older you are, the more you have an unconscious drive to try to act according to your convictions. I think that people, whether they know it or not, always want more integrity in their life - literally, a more integrated life, where your mind and your body and your spirit are all in the same place at the same time.

Colton, Charles Caleb.

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

Confucius. Analects

Yu Tzu said, '...The gentleman devotes his efforts to the roots; for once the roots are established, the Way will grow therefrom.' " --Analects of Confucius, I:1

The Master said, "A gentleman eats without stuffing his belly; chooses a dwelling without demanding comfort; is diligent in his office and prudent in his speech; seeks the company of the virtuous in order to straighten his own ways. Of such a man, one may truly say that he is fond of learning." I.14

The Master said, "Don't worry if people don't recognize your merits; worry that you may not recognize theirs." I.16

The Master said: "He who rules by virtue is like the polestar, which remains unmoving in its mansion while all the other stars revolve respectfully around it." 2.1

The Master said: "At fifteen, I set my mind upon learning. At thirty, I took my stand. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the will of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was attuned. At seventy, I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rule." 2.4

The Master said: "Find out why a man acts, observe how he acts, and examine where he finds his peace. Is there anything he could still hide?" 2.10

The Master said" "The gentleman considers the whole rather than the parts. The small man considers the parts rather than the whole." 2.14

Duke Ai asked: "What should I do to win the hearts of the people?" Confucius replied: "Raise the straight and set them above the crooked, and you will win the hearts of the people. If you raise the crooked and set them above the straight, the people will deny you their support." 2.19

The Master said: "Only a good man can love people and can hate people." 4.3

The Master said: "A scholar sets his heart on the Way; if he is ashamed of his shabby clothes and coarse food, he is not worth listening to." 4.9

The Master said: "A gentleman seeks virtue; a small man seeks land. A gentleman seeks justice; a small man seeks favors." 4.11

The Master said: "Virtue is not solitary; it always has neighbors." 4.25

The Master said: "There was a time when I used to listen to what people said and trusted that they would act accordingly, but now I listen to what they say and watch what they do." 5.10

Zigong asked: "Why was Kong-the-Civilized called Civilized"? The Master said: "Because he had an agile mind, was fond of learning, and was not ashamed to seek enlightenment from his inferiors." 5.15

The Master said: "A gentleman may be misinformed, he cannot be seduced; he may be deceived, he cannot be led astray." 6.26

The Master said: "Failure to cultivate moral power, failure to explore what I have learned, incapacity to stand by what I know to be right, incapacity to reform what is not good -- these are my worries." 7.3

The Master said: "Put me in the company of any two people at random -- they will invariably have something to teach me. I can take their qualities as a model and their defects as a warning." 7.22

The Master said: "I am fortunate indeed: whenever I make a mistake, there is always someone to notice it." 7.31

The Master said: "My zeal is as strong as anyone's; but I have not yet succeeded in living nobly." 7.33

The Master said: "Uphod the faith, love learning, defend the good Way with your life. Enter not a country that is unstable: dwell not in a country that is in turmoil. Shine in a world that follows the Way; hide when the world loses the Way. In a country where the Way prevails, it is shameful to remain poor and obscure; in a country which has lost the Way, it is shameful to become ridh and honored." 8.13

The Master stood by a river and said: "Everything flows like this, without ceasing, day and night." 9.17

The Master said: "I have never seen anyone who loved virtue as much as sex."

The Master said, "When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal.
When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self."
Analects IV: 17

The Master said, "It is only the most intelligent and the most stupid who are not susceptible to change."
Analects XVII: 3

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness

I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men--men, I tell you.

Cooper, James Fenimore.

Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park

• All major changes are like death. You can't see to the other side until you are there.
• Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't ge given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.
• Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.
• But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature...
• And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary...
• A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits.

..... Timeline

          The very concept of time travel makes no sense, since time doesn't flow. The fact that we think time passes is just an accident of our nervous systems - of the way things look to us. In reality, time doesn't pass; we pass. Time itself is invariant. It just is. Therefore, past and future aren't separate locations, the way New York and Paris are separate locations. And since the past isn't a location, you can't travel to it.

Crisp, Quentin.

You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.

Crowley, John, Daemonomania

•           We act on earth as best we can, and do what it seems we must or ought to do; and by so doing we sometimes bring about redemptions - and defeats - that we never know of, in spheres we cannot perceive. It's only because of the rebounding geometries of the rays, the ceaseless rays whose intersections link the lives of all the worlds. Maybe those who are freed or foiled by our actions know what we've done, but most of the time we here do not; it's only a few of us who ever guess it's possible at all, and soon enough it no longer is.

•           Who (says Idleness) introduced Injustice into the world? Toil and his brothers. Who - spurred on by Honor - made one man better and smarter than another, left some in poverty and made others rich? It was Toil, this same meddler and stirrer-up of discontent. Little did our first parents see that from the time they plucked the fruit of Knowledge, nothing would be the same again; they had unleashed Change, and with it Pain, and Toil.

•           There are ways down into the land of Death; and there are also ways upward into the realms above, to which the same dead go.
            There are the dark brotherhoods, the unknown ones, who go down into those lands that are not under the earth's skin of soil but are nevertheless deep down; who give chase, who follow after those whom they are bound to pursue, to whom they are joined through time in an enmity that is not different from love. And there are also the light brotherhoods, who go the upward ways, and they are also unknown. Over their lifetimes - over many lifetimes, it might be - these have built for themselves, by thought and by works, a body of light; a body that beyond death can arise through all the spheres like an ark, and escape the jealous rulers. They know the right words to say, they don't drink at the silver river and forget whence they have come and whither they go, and so they don't need to turn back and do it all again.
           And yet among them are a few who, knowing all this, nevertheless do return here below, for our sakes. How many? Only one in any age, whose name is known to all though not his nature? Or numbers of them, enough so that every one of us will one day be touched by one? Anyway they return, not once but many times, and they will go on returning - not recycled out of hylic ignorance and forgetfulness but turning back by choice from that shore, each time more reluctantly, with deeper pangs, and only because so many of us still remain behind.

Curtis, Donald A.

A baseball player never hits .300. He swings the bat. What happens next is beyond his control. Good ball players concentrate on their swing and accept their batting averages.

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