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This Is The Most Important Thing I Will Ever Say To You. The Human Mind Is The Ultimate Testing Device. You Can Take All The Notes You Want On The Technical Data, Anything You Forget You Can Look Up Again, But This Must Be Engraved On Your Hearts In Letters Of Fire. There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, More Important To Me In The Men And Women I Train Than Their Absolute Personal Integrity. Whether You Function As Welders Or Inspectors, The Laws Of Physics Are Implacable Lie Detectors. You May Fool Men. You Will Never Fool Metal. That’s All.

-Lois McMaster Bujold

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This Is The Most

Lois McMaster Bujold

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This Is The Most Important Thing I Will Ever Say To You. The Human Mind Is The Ultimate Testing Device. You Can Take All The Notes You Want On The Technical Data, Anything You Forget You Can Look Up Again, But This Must Be Engraved On Your Hearts In Letters Of Fire. There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, More Important To Me In The Men And Women I Train Than Their Absolute Personal Integrity. Whether You Function As Welders Or Inspectors, The Laws Of Physics Are Implacable Lie Detectors. You May Fool Men. You Will Never Fool Metal. That’s All.

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Some Men Just Aren't Cut Out For Paternity. Better They Should Realize It Before And Not After They Become Responsible For A Son.

I Do Think, Half Of What We Call Madness Is Just Some Poor Slob Dealing With Pain By A Strategy That Annoys The People Around Him.

When You Choose An Action, You Choose The Consequences Of That Action. When You Desire A Consequence You Had Damned Well Better Take The Action That Would Create It.

Power Is Better Than Revenge. Power Is A Live Thing, By Which You Reach Out To Grasp The Future. Revenge Is A Dead Thing, Reaching Out From The Past To Grasp You.

Since No One Is Perfect, It Follows That All Great Deeds Have Been Accomplished Out Of Imperfection. Yet They Were Accomplished, Somehow, All The Same.

I Know Girls Who Pine For It. They Like To Play Dress-up And Pretend Being Vor Ladies Of Old, Rescued From Menace By Romantic Vor Youths. For Some Reason They Never Play 'dying In Childbirth', Or 'vomiting Your Guts Out From The Red Dysentery', Or 'weaving Till You Go Blind And Crippled From Arthritis And Dye Poisoning', Or 'infanticide'. Well, They Do Die Romantically Of Disease Sometimes, But Somehow It's Always An Illness That Makes You Interestingly Pale And Everyone Sorry And Doesn't Involve Losing Bowel Control.

I Think 99 Percent Of Women's Lib Comes From Technology Making Different Kinds Of Lives Possible, And Then The Social Adjustment Follows The Technology - It Doesn't Precede It.

How Could You Be A Great Man If History Brought You No Great Events, Or Brought You To Them At The Wrong Time, Too Young, Too Old?

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I Need Words That Mean More Than They Mean, Words Not Just With Height And Width, But Depth And Weight And, And Other Dimensions That I Cannot Even Name.

Miles Is... Miles; Close To A Force Of Nature, Climbing Up Out Of His Own Pages And Escaping Subordination To Any Opinion Of Mine.

Endure Pain, Find Joy, And Make Your Own Meaning, Because The Universe Certainly Isn't Going To Supply It.

One Learns Better Than To Hand One's Choices To Fear. With Age, With Every Wound And Scar, One Learns.

Wounds And Scars

All The Geniuses I Ever Met Were So Just Part Of The Time. To Qualify, You Only Have To Be Great Once, You Know. Once When It Matters.

Events May Be Horrible Or Inescapable. Men Have Always A Choice - If Not Whether, Then How, They May Endure.

Never Underestimate The Human Capacity For Wishful Thinking And Willful Blindness,' Said Miles. Such As A Whole Society Of People Who Became So Wrapped Up In Avoiding Death, They Forgot To Be Alive?

Utterly Bleak And Black Is Not The Sum Of Realism. All The Other Colors Are Real, Too.

I've Described My Usual Writing Process As Scrambling From Peak To Peak On Inspiration Through Foggy Valleys Of Despised Logic. Inspiration Is Better When You Can Get It.

And This Was Your Friend?" Cordelia Raised Her Eyebrows. "seems To Me The Only Difference Between Your Friends And Your Enemies Is How Long The Stand Around Chatting Before They Shoot You.

Your Father Calls You To His Court. You Need Not Pack. You Go Garbed In Glorious Raiment. He Waits Eagerly By His Palace Doors To Welcome You, And Has Prepared A Place At The High Table, By His Side, In The Company Of The Great-souled, Honored, And Best-beloved.

Like Integrity, Love Of Life Was Not A Subject To Be Studied, It Was A Contagion To Be Caught. And You Had To Catch It From Someone Who Had It.

It's A Bizarre But Wonderful Feeling, To Arrive Dead Center Of A Target You Didn't Even Know You Were Aiming For.

You Should Have Fallen In Love With A Happy Man, If You Wanted Happiness. But No, You Had To Fall For The Breathtaking Beauty Of Pain.

If You Make It Plain You Like People, It's Hard For Them To Resist Liking You Back.

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.

Good Soldiers Never Pass Up A Chance To Eat Or Sleep. They Never Know How Much They'll Be Called On To Do Before The Next Chance.

I Wanted To Give You A Victory. But By Their Essential Nature Triumphs Can’t Be Given.

History Does Not So Much Repeat As Echo, I Suppose.

Honor Is What You Know About Yourself.

All Great Human Deeds Both Consume And Transform Their Doers. Consider An Athlete, A Scientist, An Artist, Or An Entrepreneur. In Service Of Their Goals, They Lay Down Time, Energy And Many Other Choices And Pleasures; In Return, They Become Most Truly Themselves. A False Destiny May Be Spotted By The Fact That It Consumes Without Transforming, Without Giving Back The Enlarged Self.

All True Wealth Is Biological.

Do It For Yourself. The Universe Will Be Around To Collect Its Cut Later.

Adulthood Isn't An Award They'll Give You For Being A Good Child. You Can Waste Years, Trying To Get Someone To Give That Respect To You, As Though It Were A Sort Of Promotion Or Raise In Pay. If Only You Do Enough, If Only You Are Good Enough. No. You Have To Just Take It. Give It To Yourself, I Suppose. Say, I'm Sorry You Feel Like That And Walk Away. But That's Hard

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Surely Only Correct Understanding Could Lead To Correct Action.

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If The Truth Doesn't Save Us, What Does That Say About Us?

If You Want To Catch Something, Running After It Isn't Always The Best Way.

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This Is Important! But You Have To Stay Absolutely Cool. I May Be Completely Off-base, And Panicking Prematurely." "i Don't Think So. I Think You're Panicking Post-maturely. In Fact, If You Were Panicking Any Later It Would Be Practically Posthumously. I've Been Panicking For Days.

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Aim High. You May Still Miss The Target, But At Least You Won't Shoot Your Foot Off.

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Colonel Otto, Do You Have A, Perhaps, Fuller And More Detailed Account Than Your Preliminary One Of Why My Imperial Security Building Is Now Largely An Underground Installation? From A Technical Perspective.

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When You Choose An Action, You Choose The Consequences Of That Action.

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Change Is Possible.' 'change Is Inevitable.

Possible Change

Change Is Inevitable

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If There's No Game, Isn't Winning A Pretty Meaningless Concept?

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A Good Friend Of My Son's Is A Son To Me.

Lost Friendship

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Miles Clutched Quinn's Elbow. "don't Panic." "i'm Not Panicking," Quinn Observed, "i'm Watching You Panic. It's More Entertaining .

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Adversity Does Teach Who Your Real Friends Are.

Bleeding Ulcers Run In My Family, We Give Them To Each Other.

A Stunning First Impression Was Not The Same Thing As Love At First Sight. But Surely It Was An Invitation To Consider The Matter.

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A Weapon Is A Device For Making Your Enemy Change His Mind.

The Gods' Most Savage Curses Come Upon Us As Answers To Our Own Prayers. Prayer Is A Dangerous Business.

Women Do Desperately Need Models For Power Other Than The Maternal.

We Should Have Taken Our Chances Back Then, When We Were Young And Beautiful And Didn't Even Know It.

I Have A Catch-phrase To Describe My Plot-generation Technique -- 'what's The Worst Possible Thing I Can Do To These People?'

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It Is Always Easier To Get Forgiveness Than Permission.

When You Can’t Do Something Truly Useful, You Tend To Vent The Pent Up Energy In Something Useless But Available, Like Snappy Dressing.

Forward Momentum Only Worked As A Strategy If One Had Correctly Identified Which Way Was Forward.

If You Desire A Man To Tell You Comfortable Lies About Your Prowess, And So Fetter Any Hope Of True Excellence, I'm Sure You May Find One Anywhere. Not All Prisons Are Made Of Iron Bars. Some Are Made Of Feather Beds.

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What You Are Is A Question Only You Can Answer.

The Will To Be Stupid Is A Very Powerful Force, But There Are Always Alternatives.

I Am Who I Choose To Be. I Have Always Been What I Chose, Though Not Always What I Pleased.

Have You Ever Heard The Phrase, Living Well Is The Best Revenge?" "where I Come From, Someone's Head In A Bag Is Generally Considered The Best Revenge

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For A While, I Thought I Was Going Mad. At Last, I Became Reconciled To My Despair. The Medications Helped, Too, I Thought, Sir.

I've Got Forward Momentum. There's No Virtue In It. It's Just A Balancing Act. I Don't Dare Stop.

I Am An Atheist, Myself. A Simple Faith, But A Great Comfort To Me, In These Last Days.

Second Sight Is Redundant To Reason Anyway.

I Am Not A Fate Worse Than Death, Dammit!

Never Do Yourself, What You Can Con Professionals Into Doing For You.

Anything Worth Achieving Is Worth Overachieving.

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I Am Increasingly Convinced That Technological Culture Is The Entire Root Of Women's Liberation.

One Foot In Front Of The Other, Wasn't That The Grownup Way Of Solving Problems? Surely He Ought To Be A Grownup At His Age.

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.

There Was No Limit To What One Man Might Do, If He Gave All, And Held Back Nothing.

Honesty Is The Only Way With Anyone, When You'll Be So Close As To Be Living Inside Each Other's Skins.

Not That I Haven't Leaped Up Into The Blinding Light Of Competence Now And Then. It's Sustaining The Altitude That Defeats Me.

On The Sixth Day God Saw He Couldn't Do It All, So He Created Engineers

I Don't Want Power. I Just Object To Idiots Having Power Over Me.

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I Miss It Every Minute, And I Have No Wish At All To Go Back.

The World Is Made By The People Who Show Up For The Job.

The Good Face Pain. But The Great? They Embrace It.

I Take It As A Man's Duty To Restrain Himself.

All The Worry People Expend Over Not Existing After They Die, Yet Nary A One Ever Seems To Spare A Moment To Worry About Not Having Existed Before They Were Conceived. Or At All. After All, One Sperm Over And We Would Have Been Our Sisters, And We'd Never Have Been Missed.

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I Don't Confuse Greatness With Perfection. To Be Great Anyhow Is The Higher Achievement.

There Is No More Hollow Feeling Than To Stand With Your Honor Shattered At Your Feet While Soaring Public Reputation Wraps You In Rewards. That's Soul-destroying. The Other Way Around Is Merely Very, Very Irritating.

Your Reverence, I Do Not Hate Any Man In This World Enough To Inflict The Results Of My Prayers Upon Him.

Never Argue With A Pedant Over Nomenclature. It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pedant.

Some Prices Are Just Too High, No Matter How Much You May Want The Prize. The One Thing You Can't Trade For Your Heart's Desire Is Your Heart.

Our Children Change Us... Whether They Live Or Not.

People Give Themselves To You, In Their Talking, And In Other Ways, If You Are Quiet And Patient And Let Them, And Not In Such A Damned Rush To Give Yourself To Them You Go Bat-blind And Deaf.

Only The Saints Would Joke So About The Gods, Because It Was Either Joke Or Scream, And They Alone Knew It Was All The Same To The Gods.

Yes," Vorkosigan Agreed, "i Could Take Over The Universe With This Army If I Could Ever Get All Their Weapons Pointed In The Same Direction.

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Some People Grow Into Their Dreams, Instead Of Out Of Them.

The Rule For Finding Plots For Character-centered Novels, Which Is To Ask: 'so What's The Worst Possible Thing I Can Do To *this* Guy?' And Then Do It.

A Tactical Retreat Is Not A Bad Response To A Surprise Assault, You Know. First You Survive. Then You Choose Your Own Ground. Then You Counterattack.

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You Can Say A Lot In A Little Time, If You Stick To Words Of One Syllable.

Mia Maz Glanced Aside In Concern At His Muffled Snort. "are You All Right?" "yes. Sorry," He Whispered. "i'm Just Having An Attack Of Limericks." Her Eyes Widened, And She Bit Her Lip; Only Her Deepening Dimple Betrayed Her. "shhh," She Said, With Feeling.

The Gods Give No Gifts Without Hooks Embedded.

This Is The Most Important Thing I Will Ever Say To You. The Human Mind Is The Ultimate Testing Device. You Can Take All The Notes You Want On The Technical Data, Anything You Forget You Can Look Up Again, But This Must Be Engraved On Your Hearts In Letters Of Fire. There Is Nothing, Nothing, Nothing, More Important To Me In The Men And Women I Train Than Their Absolute Personal Integrity. Whether You Function As Welders Or Inspectors, The Laws Of Physics Are Implacable Lie Detectors. You May Fool Men. You Will Never Fool Metal. That’s All.

It Was Never What I Wanted To Buy That Held My Heart's Hope. It Was What I Wanted To Be.

There Are Always Survivors At A Massacre. Among The Victors, If Nowhere Else.

No Battle Plan Survives First Contact With The Enemy. Not When The Enemy Is Me.

But Pain Seems To Me An Insufficient Reason Not To Embrace Life. Being Dead Is Quite Painless. Pain, Like Time, Is Going To Come On Regardless. Question Is, What Glorious Moments Can You Win From Life In Addition To The Pain?

His Outflung Hands Traced Over The Threads Of His Rug, Passed Loop By Loop Through Some Patient Woman's Hands. Or Maybe She Hadn't Been Patient. Maybe She'd Been Tired, Or Irritated, Or Distracted, Or Hungry, Or Angry. Maybe She Had Been Dying. But Her Hands Had Kept Moving, All The Same.

If Power Was An Illusion, Wasn't Weakness Necessarily One Also?

You Try To Give Away What You Want Yourself.

You Don't Pay Back Your Parents. You Can't. The Debt You Owe Them Gets Collected By Your Children, Who Hand It Down In Turn. It's A Sort Of Entailment. Or If You Don't Have Children Of The Body, It's Left As A Debt To Your Common Humanity. Or To Your God, If You Possess Or Are Possessed By One. The Family Economy Evades Calculation In The Gross Planetary Product. It's The Only Deal I Know Where, When You Give More Than You Get, You Aren't Bankrupted - But Rather, Vastly Enriched.

Common Humanity

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.

When The Time Comes To Leap In Faith Whether You Have Your Eyes Open Or Closed Or Scream All The Way Down Or Not Makes No Practical Difference.

Guard Your Honor. Let Your Reputation Fall Where It Will. And Outlive The Bastards.

If You Can't Do What You Want, Do What You Can.

Invisible Monsters

Seems Like Half My Anxiety Dreams Are About Airports.

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A Price Is Something You Get. A Cost Is Something You Lose.

I'm The One That's Got To Die When It's Time For Me To Die, So Let Me Live My Life The Way I Want To.” - Jimi Hendrix, “the Dead Cannot Cry Out For Justice. It Is A Duty Of The Living To Do So For Them.

One Of The Best Things About Writing Is How It Redeems, Not To Mention Recycles, All Of One's Prior Experiences, Including Or Perhaps Especially The Failures.

You Have To Be Careful Who You Let Define Your Good.

Exile, For No Other Motive Than Ease, Would Be The Last Defeat, With No Seed Of Future Victory In It.

There Is A Sad Disconnectedness That Overcomes A Library When Its Owner Is Gone.

If You're Trying To Take A Roomful Of People By Surprise, It's A Lot Easier To Hit Your Targets If You Don't Yell Going Through The Door.

The Imperial Service Could Win A War Without Coffee, But Would Prefer Not To Have To.

Reputation Is What Other People Know About You. Honor Is What You Know About Yourself.

Any Communitys Arm Of Force - Military, Police, Security - Needs People In It Who Can Do Necessary Evil, And Yet Not Be Made Evil By It. To Do Only The Necessary And No More. To Constantly Question The Assumptions, To Stop The Slide Into Atrocity.

Ignorance Is Not Stupidity, But It Might As Well Be. And I Do Not Like Feeling Stupid.

I've Always Tried To Write The Kind Of Book I Most Loved To Read: Character-centered Adventure.

My Dinner Party,' Miles Grated. 'it's Just Breaking Up.' And Sinking. All Souls Feared Lost.

Escapist Literature Gets A Bad Rap. But I Think Escape Is Important For A Lot Of People In A Lot Of Places.

The Principle Difference Between Heaven And Hell Is The Company You Keep There.

Company You Keep

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