Surefish interview (2002)
Context: A sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a real and important story, a sense of being connected to other people, to people who are not here any more, to those who have gone before us. And a sense of being connected to the universe itself.
All those things were promised and summed up in the phrase, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'. But if the Kingdom is dead, we still need those things. We can't live without those things because it's too bleak, it's too bare and we don't need to. We can find a way of creating them for ourselves if we think in terms of a Republic of Heaven.
This is not a Kingdom but a Republic, in which we are all free and equal citizens, with — and this is the important thing — responsibilities. With the responsibility to make this place into a Republic of Heaven for everyone. Not to live in it in a state of perpetual self-indulgence, but to work hard to make this place as good as we possibly can.
“The theory was and always had been: this is the thing the solid citizen has no need to worry about. Important, later all-important question: what about the hollow citizen?”
Bk. 2, Ch. "In the Beginning Was the Herd"
The Shockwave Rider (1975)
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John Brunner 147
British author 1934–1995Related quotes
As quoted in "Mogherini: Italy will play a major role" in eunews (12 January 2014) http://www.eunews.it/en/2014/01/12/mogherini-italy-will-play-a-major-role/12911.
"What You'll Wish You'd Known", January 2005
“The frivolous can call me frivolous.
I’ve always been most punctilious about
important things.”
A Byzantine Nobleman in Exile Composing Verses http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=16&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: The frivolous can call me frivolous.
I’ve always been most punctilious about
important things. And I insist
that no one knows better than I do
the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils.
"Bernard Shaw," in A Jacques Barzun Reader : Selections from his works (2002), p. 231
Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2014
2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)
“To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.”
Source: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 18: The Taming of Power