Orson Scott Card Quotes
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The billion billion paths of his life lay open before him, waiting for his first choices, for the first changes in the world around him to eliminate a million futures every second.
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What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because they force us or because we're afraid they might force us?
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Faithfulness had taken me by surprise. I wondered how long the phase would last.
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I believed all that stuff about pleasing myself. Can't be done. You can't please yourself by doing what you want. Because it doesn't mean anything if it's just you. There has to be somebody it matters to.
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If he was a good man, how could he leave me? So he must not be a good man. But if he isn't good, then why does it hurt so much to lose him? Is it just my pride that's wounded?
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'I’ve never seen a soft heart turn hard,' said Taleswapper. 'At least not without good reason.'
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Sometimes those who care for the whole community must act in a way that harms the individual. For a good man it never becomes easy and he avoids it when he can; but when people need him to be harsh, he will be harsh indeed, and he won't shrink from it, he'll do it with his own hand and let it be known what he does.
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We are all fools when one wise man appears.
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You were born with compassion, only that also means that when people are cruel to you it cuts you deep. You won't understand that you have to walk right up to the ones who are being hateful and laugh in their faces and earn their respect. Instead you'll try to figure out what you did to make them mad at you.
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Here's my throat. I carry no weapon. You could have killed me at any time, even when I knew you were my enemy. Why did you need to deceive me into trusting you first? Were you afraid that death wouldn't bother me enough, unless I felt betrayed?
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As long as you keep getting born, it's alright to die some times.
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Your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.
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Most of the things people say they remember they only imagine anyways.
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Today, I saw a spark of decency. Let's blow on that spark and give it fuel.
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Adolescents never understand that the best way to avoid notice is to behave normally.
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Evil people naturally assume that you will use that power exactly as they would use it.
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I will not be tamed, only persuaded. I will not be coerced or led blindly or tricked or bullied - I am willing only to be convinced. If you don't trust your own basic goodness enough to tell me what you're trying to do... Then you're confessing your own moral weakness and I'll never serve you.
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'You,' said Purity, 'have been long enough out of England to pick up some American brag.''But surrounded by Americans as I am,' said Cooper, 'my brag is like a farthing in a sack of guineas.'
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When you have enough money the law is a reed that will always bend your way.
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What the White man had won with so much blood and dishonesty was not the living land of the Red man, but the corpse of that land. It was decay that the White man won. It would turn to dust in his hands, Alvin knew it.
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Boys always argued as if they knew then had the forces of logic on their side, even when they were being completely irrational.
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How does he do it? How does he master people without bluster or bullying? How does he make people fear him or love him, not in spite of his ruthlessness but because of it?
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Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth.
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Sometimes it felt to him as though he’s spent most of his life traveling, and never quite got to anywhere that mattered. Then again, that might be as good a description of what life was supposed to be as anyone ever thought of. The only real destination was death, and our lives consisted of finding the most circuitous and pleasant path to get there.