„It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.“

Beware of Pity (1939)

Galactic North (p. 366)
Short fiction, Galactic North (2006)

The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)
Kontext: Reading is an active and elusive experience. Every reader, reading exactly the same text, will have a slightly different reading experience depending on what s/he projects into the words s/he sees, what strings of meaning and association those words call up in his/her (always) private mind. One can never therefore, talk about the quality of a book separately from the quality of the mind that is creating it by reading it, in the only place books live, in the secret mind.

"'A Conversation With Lois McMaster Bujold", an interview with Lillian Stewart Carl, p. 52

Quelle: Charles Dickens (1906), Ch 1 : "The Dickens Period"

"The Power of Words" (1978)

Love is not a feeling ~ The Interview (1995)
Kontext: Do you know what humanity is, what the word "human" means? The word human where I come from - which is the enlightened state - means suffering. So when you say you're a human being, you're saying you're a suffering being. And I say you have to get rid of your suffering and then be being. Enlightenment is the state of being which I am, this moment and every moment. So I'm not suffering. But humanity loves to suffer. People love to suffer because they love to get excited with their feelings. All you've got to do is get rid of your feelings, which are always negative. Why not get rid of the whole lot of it, now? That means you don't know feelings and then you don't know negativity, and then you'd be in love, and then you would love everybody by not loving anybody in particular as a feeling. That's the state of enlightenment.

Quelle: Everything Is Illuminated (2002)

Quelle: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p. 330)

Quelle: https://www.prageru.com/video/democratic-socialism-is-still-socialism/

and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up.

p. 58
Philosophical Papers (1979)

Magnus Bane and Ragnor Fell in 1791, p. 9.
The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)

Quelle: The Alchemist

"No Self Surrender"
What Buddhists Believe (1993)

Journal entry (2 March 1861), Ch. 5 : The Beginning of the War.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Kontext: Eternal life and eternal death; what do these words mean? This is the question that comes up again and again. It has recently been brought up by those whom I am appointed to instruct; and the question with its answer, brings new and fearful responsibility with every return. I am more and more convinced that the idea of duration is not the one that affects us most: for here it has proved that those who are least careful about what they are in heart and life, are trying hardest to convince themselves and others that the "doctrine of eternal punishment" is not true. By making themselves believe that to be the all-important question, they draw off their own and others' attention from the really momentous one, — "Am I living the eternal life? Is it begun in me now?"
And now I see why I have questioned whether it was right in me to express my own doubts of this very doctrine. The final renovation of all souls, their restoration to life in holiness and love, is certainly a hope of mine that is not without a strong infusion of confidence; but I dare not say it is a belief; because both reason and revelation have left it in deep mystery; and the expression of any such belief does not seem to me likely to help others much; certainly not those who are indolent or indifferent regarding the true Christian life.
Then the "loss of the soul" is in plain language spoken of by our Lord as possible. What can that mean, but the loss of life in Him? the loss of ennobling aspirations, of the love of all good, of the power of seeing and seeking truth? And if this is possible to us now, by our own choice, why not forever? — since, as free beings, our choice must always be in our own power?
The truth that we must all keep before us, in order to be growing better forever, is that life is love and holiness; death, selfishness and sin; then it is a question of life and death to be grappled with in the deep places of every soul.

Quelle: "Unsafe at Any Speed or: Safe, Sane and Consensual, My Fanny", p. 12

Quelle: The Hammer of Thor

Quelle: The Princess Bride