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"One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough."
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"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"
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Personal Development
"Any religion which demands death for other people is itself worthy of nothing less than it expects for others. In fact, it is probably long overdue."
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Personal Development
"And no one rose to ask the question: Good?-by what standard?John Galt."
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Personal Development
"Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right."
Author Name
Personal Development
"What need of prompt or hint when it is open to yourself to discern what needs to be done - and, if you can see your way, to follow it with kind but undeviating intent. If you cannot see the way, hold back and consult your best advisors. if some other factors obstruct this advice, proceed on your present resources, but with cautious deliberations, keeping always to what seems just. Justice is the best aim, as any failure is in fact a failure of justice.A man following reason in all things combines relaxation with initiative, spark with composure."
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Personal Development
"Ethics are the things that say, 'Don't stick your finger in the socket.' The world says, 'It's okay because we've shut off the electricity.' And at the point that we've chosen to listen to the world and ignore our ethics, we say, 'I'm having a really hard time getting back up."
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Personal Development
"Angling is a sport, so sporting ethics should apply."
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Personal Development
"He that resolves to deal with none but honest men must leave off dealing."
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Personal Development
"When we constantly ask for miracles, we're unraveling the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would not be a world, it would be a cartoon."
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Personal Development
"It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result."
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Personal Development
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"For a different woman, a different relationship, a different situation, gentleness might have been the proper, the only approach-but not for this woman, in these circumstances. The only thing that will cleanse Claire (and reassure her: look at what she says at the end of it. She feels safe again, having felt the power and violence in him) is violence. And-the most important point here-Jamie pays attention to what she wants, rather than proceeding with his own notion of how it should be, even though it's a sensible notion and the one most people would have."
Relationship
"Soldiers manage by dividing themselves. They're one man in the killing, another at home, and the man that dandles his bairn on his knee has nothing to do wi' the man who crushed his enemy's throat with his boot, so he tells himself, sometimes successfully."
Society
"Overall, the library held a hushed exultation, as though the cherished volumes were all singing soundlessly within their covers."
Learning
"It's the anonymity of the war that makes the killing possible. When the nameless dead are named again on tombstone and on cenotaph, then they regain the identity they lost as soldiers, and take their place in grief and memory, the ghosts of sons and lovers."
History
"Nay, he needs a woman, not a girl. And Laoghaire will be a girl when she's fifty."
Relationship
"One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough."
Ethics
"You don't need to know the purpose as you write, but when you read over something you've written, you should be able to point to any given element-be that a line of dialogue, a descriptive phrase, a plot point-and say why it's there."
Art
"To some extent, emotions are universal and can be treated that way; no matter what the participants' orientation or preference, they have sex for the same reasons and can experience the same array of emotions in the process. But there are three important distinctions to be made: 1. The logistics of physiology 2. The basics of sexual attraction 3. Cultural impact on character and situation."
Social
"So now it's space and time," he said. "You ever watch Doctor Who on PBS?""All the time," she said dryly, "on the BBC. And don't think I wouldn't sell my soul for a TARDIS."
Entertainment
"Watch a good movie sometime without reference to what's happening but only with attention to how it was photographed; you'll see the change of focus-zoom in, pan out, close-up on face, fade to black, open from above-easily. You want to do that in what you write; it's one of the things that keep people's eyes on the page, though they're almost never conscious of it."
Creativity
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