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Eeyore Joins the Game

...Pooh began to feel a little more comfortable, because when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it...

AYN RAND

Anthem

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

This god, this one word: "I."

Atlas Shrugged

Faith in the supernatural begins as faith in the superiority of others.

SCI-FI & FANTASY

ISAAC ASIMOV

Foundation's Edge

The advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy.

IAIN BANKS

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

Friday

I think that you are immune to the temptations of religion. If you are not, I cannot help you, any more than I could keep you from acquiring a drug habit. A religion is sometimes a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong--and you are strong. The great trouble with religion--any religion--is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason--but one cannot have both.

FRANK HERBERT

Dune

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

[Muad'Dib] tell us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptaion to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation."

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.

Children of Dune

These are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness...

Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself--a barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future atrocities thus bred.

MICHAEL MOORCOCK

The War Hound and the World's Pain

(Excerpt from a conversation between von Bek and Lucifer)
"What is freedom in Heaven?" I asked.
"In Hell you become what you fear yourself to be. In Heaven you may become what you hope yourself to be," said Lucifer.
I had expected a more profound reply, or at least a more complicated one.
"A mild enough punishment, compared to what Luther threatened," I observed.
"Apparently. And far less interesting than Luther's torments, as he would tell you himself. There is nothing very interesting in Hell."

TERRY PRATCHETT

Eric

Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is important to shoot missionaries on sight.

TAD WILLIAMS

Caliban's Hour

I have now seen the huge churches of Naples. Although I heard of them from your father, Miranda, and saw pictures in his books, I could not quite believe any building so tall could exist. Now I believe . . . but I still do not understand. If your God is everywhere, if He is always watching, why should your people make houses to go to worship Him? Faced with an all-seeing, everywhere-being God, I would think what is needed is a place to hide.

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