The collection / 90 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

SearchTypeTopicEraCulture / collection labelCountry attributionTraditionOrder

Author

Leave empty for every voice. Browse all authors ↗

Reset

Culture labels and country attributions follow the source collections; earliest origins may be unknown.

90 results · Page 2 of 4Play this collection ▷

01Undated

And whose fault was it that the boy swallowed down lies, when no one would feed him the truth?

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

02Undated

Women do desperately need models for power other than the maternal.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

03Undated

Real destiny takes everything—the last drop of blood, and strip out your veins to be sure—and gives it back doubled. Quadrupled. A thousand-fold! But you can't give halves. You have to give it all. I know. I swear. I've come back from the dead to speak the truth to you. Real destiny gives you a mountain of life, and puts you on top of it.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

04Undated

The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

05Undated

This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

06Undated

And the Bastard grant us... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

07Undated

Tej seemed such a sunny personality, much of the time--these flashes of dark were like a crack in the sky, shocking and wrong. Reminding him that the daylight was the illusion, the scattering of light by the atmosphere, and the endless night was the permanent default behind it all.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

08Undated

You? I know you! You trust beyond reason."She met his eyes steadily. "Yes. It's how I get results beyond hope. As you may recall.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

09Undated

There will be grace and forgiveness enough, old dog, even for you. I pray you will spare me a drink from that cup, when it overflows for you.- Miles Vorkosigan

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

10Undated

Well, it is a particular sin to permit grief for what is gone to poison the praise for what blessings remain to us.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

11Undated

Royse Bergon: "I've seen your integrity in action. It...widened my world. I'd been raised by my father, who is a prudent, cautious man, always looking for men's hidden, selfish motivations. No one can cheat him. But I've seen him cheat himself. If you understand what I mean."Caz: "Yes."R.B.: "It was very foolish of you to attack that vile Roknari galley-man."Caz: "Yes."R.B.: "And yet, I think, given the same circumstances you would do it again."Caz: "Knowing what I know now...it would be harder. But I would hope... I would pray, Royse, that the gods would still lend me such foolishness in my need."R.B: "What is this astonishing foolishness, that shines brighter than all my father's gold? Can you teach me to be such a fool, too, Caz?"Caz: "Oh," "I'm sure of it.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

12Undated

You were kind.”Cazaril shrugged. “Why not? What could it cost me, after all?”Bergon shook his head. “Any man can be kind when he is comfortable. I’d always thought kindness a trivial virtue, therefore. But when we were hungry, thirsty, sick, frightened, with our deaths shouting at us, in the heart of horror, you were still as unfailingly courteous as a gentleman at his ease before his own hear

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

13Undated

You must learn to give, from sufficiency, not only take, from neediness.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

14Undated

It was suicide, wasn't it?""In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate.""Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip."Exactly, my lord.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

15Undated

It’s true that if your religion failed to deliver a miracle, that a human sacrifice would certainly follow.""Ah...quite. You are a man of acute insight.""That’s not insight. That’s a personal guarantee.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

16Undated

A true Vor, Miles told himself severely, does not bury his face in his liegewoman's breasts and cry—even if he is at a convenient height for it.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

17Undated

Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

18Undated

Lately I have come to believe that the principle difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep there....

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

19Undated

You want to be good. All right, I can understand that. But you have to be careful who you let define your good.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

20Undated

Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you’ll be so close as to be living inside each other’s skins.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

21Undated

The world demands I make good choices on no information, and then blames my maidenhood for my mistakes, as if my maidenhood were responsible for my ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

22Undated

People do get hypnotized by the hard choices and stop looking at the alternatives. The will to be stupid is a powerful force

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

23Undated

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.~Dag Redwing Hickory Bluefield

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗

24Undated

It’s just a thing. You deal with it." "As in, one damn thing after another?""Yes, very like.

Lois McMaster Bujold / quote

↗