“And our differences?” Elend asked.
“At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different,” Sazed said. “Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination, he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both the lock and key were created for the same purpose.”
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Be warned that when we give up our 'selfish' ways in favor of altruism, we are often still driven by selfish motives. The impulse to help others might, in the end, be helping ourselves by helping close relatives or even our future descendants.
Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague rituals.
- Words of Muad’Dib by Princess Irulan – Chapter 5
[Describing a science-fiction-like photograph of a research lab.] Why did the magazine want such a picture?... Because it makes science look like a powerful and forbidding mystery, not for the likes of you and me. Because it tells us that only people with expensive and incomprehensible machines can discover the truth, about human beings or anything else, and that we must believe whatever they tell us. Because it turns science from an activity to be done into a commodity to be bought. Because it prevents ordinary human beings from being the scientists, the askers of questions and seekers and makers of answers that we naturally and rightfully are, and makes us instead into science consumers and science worshippers.
Ten thousand times the web could be destroyed, and ten thousand times the spider would rebuild it. There was neither annoyance nor despair, nor any delight, just as it had been for a billion years.
They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
Genes are the architects of life, but they are not the only architects. They interact with the environment, with other genes, and with our free will. We are not simply the sum of our genes; we are also the sum of the forces that act upon them.