‘... strictly speaking, topiary is not actually illegal, although I rather suspect that one or two folk are going to be the first up against the hedge when the revolution comes.’ (ISWM)
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What goes around, comes around - or stops. (MR)
'... if you go around telling people they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden...' (Do)
'Is It Frightening To Be Free?'
'You said it.' 'You Say To People "Throw Off Your Chains" And They Make New Chains For Themselves?' 'Seems to be a major human activity, yes.' (FC) They were men who felt that The Time Had Come. Regimes can survive barbarian hordes, crazed terrorists and hooded secret societies, but they're in real trouble when prosperous and anonymous men sit around a big table and think thoughts like that. (FC)
The class was learning about some revolt in which some peasants had wanted to stop being peasants and, since the nobles had won, had stopped being peasants really quickly. Had they bothered to learn to read and acquire some history books they'd have learned about the uncertain merits of things like scythes and pitchforks when used in battle against crossbows and broadswords. (SM)
It is a strange but reliable fact that whenever men throw off the yoke of tyrants and set out to rule themselves there emerges, like mushrooms after rain, Mr Clete.
Hat. Hat. Hat. Mr Clete laughed at things in inverse proportion to the actual humour of the situation. (SM) Fear is a strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourishes underground. (SG)
'We died for lies, for centuries we died for lies.’ He waved a hand towards the god. ‘Now we’ve got a truth to die for!’
‘No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.' (SG) 'Maybe the best way to build a bright new world is to peel some spuds in this one?' (NW)
He didn’t make a very good revolutionary. People as meticulously fervent as Reg got real revolutionaries worried. (NW)
People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. (NW)
'But here’s some advice, boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.' (NW)
If the landslide is big enough, even square pebbles will roll. (MR)
'I know about people who talk about suffering for the common good. It’s never bloody them! When you hear a man shouting “Forward, brave comrades!” you’ll see he’s the one behind the bloody big rock and wearing the only really arrow-proof helmet!' (IT)
Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It’s unreliable levers that are the problem. (SG)
A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed the Glorious Memorial to the People’s Industry. (TOT)
The best thing you can do with the peasants is leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can
read and write start fighting on behalf of people who can’t, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open. (IT) 'You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world. Otherwise it’s just a cage.' (WA)
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The world has lost Sir Terry, and it's so much the poorer for that. Vale Sir Terry. Categories
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