Distillations Magazine Quotes & Sayings

You cannot win the war. You will seem to win but it will be an illusion. You will win the battles, kill billions, rape Worlds, take slaves, and destroy ships and weapons. But after that you will be forced to hold the subjection. Your numbers will not be expendable. You will be spread thin, exposed to other cultures that will influence you, change you. You will lose skirmishes, and in the end you will be forced back. Then will come a loss of old ethics, corruption and opportunism will replace your honor and you will know unspeakable shame and dishonor... your culture will soon be weltering back into a barbarism and disorganization which in its corruption and despair will be nothing like the proud tribal primitive life of its first barbarism. You will be aware of the difference and unable to return. — Charles V. De Vet

Observermanship is the art of giving the impression that you are with it even though you don't know Latin very well. — Robert McAfee Brown

Do not waste your presence where your absence will not be missed — Srividya Srinivasan

Things have to be done fast in America , and therefore therapy has to be brief. — Gregory Bateson

THE PREMISE OF THIS BOOK CAME TO ME CIRCA 2006, — Neal Stephenson

It's awfully hard to be the son of a great man and also of a half-crazy woman. — Henry Steele Commager

Teenagers ultimately don't mind belonging to a group, because there's always the opportunity to eventually become someone new. The elderly, by definition, are running out of opportunities for reinvention. — Charles Duhigg

she described in a separate paragraph the Haredi community, and how within it religious practice was a total way of life. The distinction between what was rendered to Caesar and what to God was meaningless, much as it was for observant Muslims. — Ian McEwan

It is far easier for us to accept the death of someone we love than to cope with the idea of losing him and discovering that he is able to carry on with his life, in all its intricacies, despite our absence. — Ahlam Mosteghanemi

The best that can be said of the Alexandrian War is that Caesar acquitted himself brilliantly in a situation in which he stupidly found himself. — Stacy Schiff

To most Americans, a dog is a potential mate. To some Chinese, a dog is potential meat. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way. — Mark Twain

Cynicism is the easiest of all reactions, right? But it's also so disappointing and self-defeating. — Chris Hadfield