“Be in control. Know what to do. Calculate…”
“Don t allow someone or something to have such control over your emotions. Take your power back.”
“Volledige beheer is altyd n illusie.”
“Generally, in a verbally abusive relationship the abuser denies the abuse. Verbal abuse most often takes place behind closed doors. Physical abuse is always preceded by verbal abuse.”
“Sin for Salvation applies to everything. It’s a mindset. It’s about not buying into the laws and attitudes of those who would control you. It’s about having an open mind about what “sin” actually is. It’s about not automatically subscribing to someone else’s conception of sin. There are many sins in this world – such as the infinite greed of Wall Street bankers and their ilk – that are held up as virtues and qualities to be emulated. Always be on the lookout for sins that masquerade as the good. Always be on the lookout for healthy activities (like joyous sex outside the institution of marriage) that are condemned as sinful.”
“In the soil of fear are planted the seeds of deception”
“I am never in control of what happens around me but I am always in control that what happens within me.”
“Our addiction to control ends up controlling us.”
“Detachment is not a cold, hostile withdrawal; a resigned, despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way; a robotical walk through life oblivious to, and totally unaffected by people and problems; a Pollyanna-like ignorant bliss; a shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others; a severing of our relationships. Nor is it a removal of our love and concern... Detachment is based on the premises that each person is responsible for himself, that we can t solve problems that aren t ours to solve, and that worrying doesn t help. We adopt a policy of keeping our hands off other people s responsibilities and tend to our own instead. If people have created some disasters for themselves, we allow them to face their own proverbial music. We allow people to be who they are. We give them the freedom to be responsible and to grow. And we give ourselves that same freedom. We live our own lives to the best of our ability. We strive to ascertain what it is we can change and what we cannot change. Then we stop trying to change things we can t. We do what we can to solve a problem, and then we stop fretting and stewing. If we cannot solve a problem and we have done what we could, we learn to live with, or in spite of, that problem. And we try to live happily — focusing heroically on what is good in our lives today, and feeling grateful for that. We learn the magical lesson that making the most of what we have turns it into more. Detachment involves present moment living — living in the here and now. We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. We relinquish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day.”
“I cannot have an heir who thinks he is stronger than I am,” Alliddar leaned in closer to stare into Nye’s eyes. “It might have an adverse influence on my life expectancy, I hear. Which is why I asked Kerak to find me a flawed, ruthless Harbinger, someone with the will to annihilate Ivy if she becomes a witch, but not nearly strong enough to make me feel threatened in my position.”
“If I demand that I be the captain of my own ship, I’ll probably be spending most of my time in a lifeboat. And if I then demand to be the captain of the lifeboat, I’ll probably be spending all of my time being the lunch of something that doesn’t care that I’m a captain.”
“Just because you can t control everything doesn t mean it isn t being handled. Trust the One who is far better at orchestrating every detail than we could ever be.”
“The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precaution- ary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly be- cause he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average lev- el of material comfort is constantly rising. But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party.”
“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictator- ship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”
“If we believe that we have control over life, we’re living in an illusion. And if we attempt to protect, strengthen, and expand this illusion, our influence on what’s genuinely happening becomes increasingly smaller; mired in resistance, our life would become a cycle of anxious complaining, postponed decisions, and missed opportunities.”
“Fear will stop you at every shoreline, if you let it. You must decide right now; who controls you, you or your fear? So put those darn toes in the water, dive right in, and swim your little heart out.”
“One would think he was going to have his throat cut, said the Controller, as the door closed. Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he d understand that his punishment is really a reward. He s being sent to an island. That s to say, he s being sent to a place where he ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren t satisfied with orthodoxy, who ve got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who s any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson. Helmholtz laughed. Then why aren t you on an island yourself? Because, finally, I preferred this, the Controller answered. I was given the choice: to be sent to an island, where I could have got on with my pure science, or to be taken on to the Controllers Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership. I chose this and let the science go. After a little silence, Sometimes, he added, I rather regret the science. Happiness is a hard master–particularly other people s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth. He sighed, fell silent again, then continued in a brisker tone, Well, duty s duty. One can t consult one s own preference. I m interested in truth, I like science. But truth s a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it s been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history. China s was hopelessly insecure by comparison; even the primitive matriarchies weren t steadier than we are. Thanks, l repeat, to science. But we can t allow science to undo its own good work. That s why we so carefully limit the scope of its researches–that s why I almost got sent to an island. We don t allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged. It s curious, he went on after a little pause, to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to have imagined that it could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can t. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific research was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years War. That made them change their tune all right. What s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled–after the Nine Years War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We ve gone on controlling ever since. It hasn t been very good for truth, of course. But it s been very good for happiness. One can t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You re paying for it, Mr. Watson–paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.”