“The world has no name, he said. The names of the cerros and the sierras and the deserts exist only on maps. We name them so that we do not lose our way. Yet it was because the way was lost to us already that we have made those names. The world cannot be lost. We are the ones. And it is because these names and these coordinates are our own naming that they cannot save us. That they cannot find for us the way again.”
The Crossing (1994)
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Cormac McCarthy 270
American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter 1933Related quotes
“If we only have love
We can reach those in pain
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.”
Translations and adaptations, If We Only Have Love (1968)
“We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.”
If Only We Have Love (1957)
Context: If we only have love
We can reach those in pain
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.
Misattributed
Original: (fr) Quand je suis le plus faible, je vous demande la liberté parce que tel est votre principe ; mais quand je suis le plus fort, je vous l’ôte, parce que tel est le mien
(fr) Also appears in the form "Quand les libéraux sont au pouvoir, nous leur demandons la liberté, parce que c’est leur principe, et, quand nous sommes au pouvoir, nous la leur refusons, parce que c’est le nôtre"
Misattributed to Veuillot in Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert: "When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."
According to Pierre Pierrard, this was attributed to Veuillot by Montalambert, and Veuillot protested he did not say it.
Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 2. The replicators
