My Kindle Clippings/2019

March

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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 232-34  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:03 PM

All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call IMPRESSIONS and IDEAS. The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 234  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:03 PM

not... the source. huh.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 248-52  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:05 PM

There is another division of our perceptions, which it will be convenient to observe, and which extends itself both to our impressions and ideas. This division is into SIMPLE and COMPLEX. Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of no distinction nor separation. The complex are the contrary to these, and may be distinguished into parts. Though a particular colour, taste, and smell, are qualities all united together in this apple, it is easy to perceive they are not the same, but are at least distinguishable from each other. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 252  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:07 PM

but een simple senations are themselves complex. mult molecules and compounds.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 255-57  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:07 PM

The one seem to be in a manner the reflexion of the other; so that all the perceptions of the mind are double, and appear both as impressions and ideas. When I shut my eyes and think of my chamber, the ideas I form are exact representations of the impressions I felt; nor is there any circumstance of the one, which is not to be found in the other. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 257  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:07 PM

wha about abstract concepts tho
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 260-63  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:08 PM

I observe, that many of our complex ideas never had impressions, that corresponded to them, and that many of our complex impressions never are exactly copied in ideas. I can imagine to myself such a city as the New Jerusalem, whose pavement is gold and walls are rubies, though I never saw any such. I have seen Paris; but shall I affirm I can form such an idea of that city, as will perfectly represent all its streets and houses in their real and just proportions? 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 269-72  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:10 PM

But if any one should deny this universal resemblance, I know no way of convincing him, but by desiring him to shew a simple impression, that has not a correspondent idea, or a simple idea, that has not a correspondent impression. If he does not answer this challenge, as it is certain he cannot, we may from his silence and our own observation establish our conclusion. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 272  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:10 PM

a ball that is grue
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 276-77  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:11 PM

we shall here content ourselves with establishing one general proposition, THAT ALL OUR SIMPLE IDEAS IN THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ARE DERIVED FROM SIMPLE IMPRESSIONS, WHICH ARE CORRESPONDENT TO THEM, AND WHICH THEY EXACTLY REPRESENT. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 284-86  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:12 PM

the simple impressions always take the precedence of their correspondent ideas, but never appear in the contrary order. To give a child an idea of scarlet or orange, of sweet or bitter, I present the objects, or in other words, convey to him these impressions; but proceed not so absurdly, as to endeavour to produce the impressions by exciting the ideas. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 286  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:14 PM

but this is tatologcal. sensory experiences require the senses. by contrast the only wa to communicate abstract mathematics is precisely an appeal to the ideas and not the impression. there isno impression.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 294-95  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:15 PM

We cannot form to ourselves a just idea of the taste of a pine apple, without having actually tasted it. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 309-10  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:17 PM

the principle of the priority of impressions to ideas must be understood with another limitation, viz., that as our ideas are images of our impressions, so we can form secondary ideas, which are images of the primary; as appears from this very reasoning concerning them. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 310  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:18 PM

recursion is possible. the doorway to inception...
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 312-13  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:18 PM

all our simple ideas proceed either mediately or immediately, from their correspondent impressions. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 313  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:19 PM

biologically false. spiders and snakes.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 315-16  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:19 PM

when it has been disputed whether there be any INNATE IDEAS, or whether all ideas be derived from sensation and reflexion. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 323-26  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:20 PM

Impressions way be divided into two kinds, those Of SENSATION and those of REFLEXION. The first kind arises in the soul originally, from unknown causes. The second is derived in a great measure from our ideas, and that in the following order. An impression first strikes upon the senses, and makes us perceive heat or cold, thirst or hunger, pleasure or pain of some kind or other. Of this impression there is a copy taken by the mind, which remains after the impression ceases; and this we call an idea. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 326  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:21 PM

this is totally ignoring absract aything.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 335-38  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:22 PM

when any impression has been present with the mind, it again makes its appearance there as an idea; and this it may do after two different ways: either when in its new appearance it retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity, and is somewhat intermediate betwixt an impression and an idea: or when it entirely loses that vivacity, and is a perfect idea. The faculty, by which we repeat our impressions in the first manner, is called the MEMORY, and the other the IMAGINATION. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 338  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:22 PM

ugh. so oversimplistic.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 350-51  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:27 PM

The chief exercise of the memory is not to preserve the simple ideas, but their order and position. In short, this principle is supported by such a number of common and vulgar phaenomena, 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 408-11  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:32 PM

It may perhaps be esteemed an endless task to enumerate all those qualities, which make objects admit of comparison, and by which the ideas of philosophical relation are produced. But if we diligently consider them, we shall find that without difficulty they may be comprised under seven general heads, which may be considered as the sources of all philosophical relation. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 411  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:32 PM

(1) The first is RESEMBLANCE: 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 415-17  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:33 PM

(2) IDENTITY may be esteemed a second species of relation. This relation I here consider as applied in its strictest sense to constant and unchangeable objects; without examining the nature and foundation of personal identity, which shall find its place afterwards. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 418  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:33 PM

(3) After identity the most universal and comprehensive relations are those of SPACE and TIME, 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 419-20  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:33 PM

(4) All those objects, which admit of QUANTITY, or NUMBER, 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 420-21  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:33 PM

(5) When any two objects possess the same QUALITY in common, the DEGREES, in which they possess it, form a fifth species of relation. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 423-25  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:33 PM

(6) The relation of CONTRARIETY may at first sight be regarded as an exception to the rule, THAT NO RELATION OF ANY KIND CAN SUBSIST WITHOUT SOME DEGREE OF RESEMBLANCE. But let us consider, that no two ideas are in themselves contrary, except those of existence and non-existence, which are plainly resembling, as implying both of them an idea of the object; 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 426-28  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:33 PM

(7) All other objects, such as fire and water, heat and cold, are only found to be contrary from experience, and from the contrariety of their causes or effects; which relation of cause and effect is a seventh philosophical relation, as well as a natural one. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 433-36  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:34 PM

whether the idea of substance be derived from the impressions of sensation or of reflection? If it be conveyed to us by our senses, I ask, which of them; and after what manner? If it be perceived by the eyes, it must be a colour; if by the ears, a sound; if by the palate, a taste; and so of the other senses. But I believe none will assert, that substance is either a colour, or sound, or a taste. The idea, of substance must therefore be derived from an impression of reflection, if it really exist. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 438-40  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:35 PM

The idea of a substance as well as that of a mode, is nothing but a collection of Simple ideas, that are united by the imagination, and have a particular name assigned them, by which we are able to recall, either to ourselves or others, that collection. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 440  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:35 PM

classes and instances... maybe
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 453-55  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:39 PM

A great philosopher [Dr. Berkeley.] has disputed the received opinion in this particular, and has asserted, that all general ideas are nothing but particular ones, annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other individuals, which are similar to them. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 455-57  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:39 PM

As I look upon this to be one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters, I shall here endeavour to confirm it by some arguments, which I hope will put it beyond all doubt and controversy. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 460-67  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:43 PM

The abstract idea of a man represents men of all sizes and all qualities; which it is concluded it cannot do, but either by representing at once all possible sizes and all possible qualities, or by, representing no particular one at all. Now it having been esteemed absurd to defend the former proposition, as implying an infinite capacity in the mind, it has been commonly inferred in favour of the latter: and our abstract ideas have been supposed to represent no particular degree either of quantity or quality. But that this inference is erroneous, I shall endeavour to make appear, first, by proving, that it is utterly impossible to conceive any quantity or quality, without forming a precise notion of its degrees: And secondly by showing, that though the capacity of the mind be not infinite, yet we can at once form a notion of all possible degrees of quantity and quality, in such a manner at least, as, however imperfect, may serve all the purposes of reflection and conversation. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 470-75  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:44 PM

And we may here add, that these propositions are equally true in the inverse, and that whatever objects are separable are also distinguishable, and that whatever objects are distinguishable, are also different. For how is it possible we can separate what is not distinguishable, or distinguish what is not different? In order therefore to know, whether abstraction implies a separation, we need only consider it in this view, and examine, whether all the circumstances, which we abstract from in our general ideas, be such as are distinguishable and different from those, which we retain as essential parts of them. But it is evident at first sight, that the precise length of a line is not different nor distinguishable from the line itself nor the precise degree of any quality from the quality. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 475  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:45 PM

wut. length of line is not line. how is that hard.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 486-90  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:48 PM

Thirdly, it is a principle generally received in philosophy that everything in nature is individual, and that it is utterly absurd to suppose a triangle really existent, which has no precise proportion of sides and angles. If this therefore be absurd in fact and reality, it must also be absurd in idea; since nothing of which we can form a clear and distinct idea is absurd and impossible. But to form the idea of an object, and to form an idea simply, is the same thing; the reference of the idea to an object being an extraneous denomination, of which in itself it bears no mark or character. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Bookmark Loc. 516  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:49 PM


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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 517-20  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:50 PM

Thus should we mention the word triangle, and form the idea of a particular equilateral one to correspond to it, and should we afterwards assert, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to each other, the other individuals of a scalenum and isosceles, which we overlooked at first, immediately crowd in upon us, and make us perceive the falshood of this proposition, though it be true with relation to that idea, which we had formed. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 530-31  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:55 PM

However this may be, it is certain that we form the idea of individuals, whenever we use any general term; 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 531  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:56 PM

wrong. scarecrow arg. there exist objects with nooooooo sensory or individual form that we can hold in our mind
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 539-42  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:57 PM

First then I observe, that when we mention any great number, such as a thousand, the mind has generally no adequate idea of it, but only a power of producing such an idea, by its adequate idea of the decimals, under which the number is comprehended. This imperfection, however, in our ideas, is never felt in our reasonings; which seems to be an instance parallel to the present one of universal ideas. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 542  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:57 PM

wow. obviously not a number theorist.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 544  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:59 PM

the number 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111...111 basically blows the whole arg out of the water
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 545-47  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 08:59 PM

we do not annex distinct and compleat ideas to every term we make use of, and that in talking of government, church, negotiation, conquest, we seldom spread out in our minds all the simple ideas, of which these complex ones are composed. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 547  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:00 PM

of course. we abstract vvvvvvolumes of detail into a single word or term.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 584-88  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:06 PM

Whatever has the air of a paradox, and is contrary to the first and most unprejudiced notions of mankind, is often greedily embraced by philosophers, as shewing the superiority of their science, which coued discover opinions so remote from vulgar conception. On the other hand, anything proposed to us, which causes surprize and admiration, gives such a satisfaction to the mind, that it indulges itself in those agreeable emotions, and will never be persuaded that its pleasure is entirely without foundation. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 589-91  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:07 PM

I cannot give a more evident instance than in the doctrine of infinite divisibility, with the examination of which I shall begin this subject of the ideas of space and time. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 591-92  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:07 PM

It is universally allowed, that the capacity of the mind is limited, and can never attain a full and adequate conception of infinity: 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 592  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:08 PM

capacity is a tricky word. do we havethe capacity to hold infinity in our minds? maybe by name... by abstract principle.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 592-94  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:34 PM

And though it were not allowed, it would be sufficiently evident from the plainest observation and experience. It is also obvious, that whatever is capable of being divided in infinitum, must consist of an infinite number of parts, and that it is impossible to set any bounds to the number of parts, without setting bounds at the same time to the division. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 594  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:34 PM

limit definition due to cauchy... as small as you would like
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 594-95  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:55 PM

that the idea, which we form of any finite quality, is not infinitely divisible, but that by proper distinctions and separations we may run up this idea to inferior ones, 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 596-97  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:55 PM

In rejecting the infinite capacity of the mind, we suppose it may arrive at an end in the division of its ideas; nor are there any possible means of evading the evidence of this conclusion. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 597  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:56 PM

but the mind is not what it perceives.... or what it ca comprehend. love exists despite the fact that dogs do not understand it.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 601-2  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:58 PM

What consists of parts is distinguishable into them, and what is distinguishable is separable. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 602  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:59 PM

again... this conflates e g mathematical fumctions as an abstract concept fwith mathematical fumction values discretely
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 602-3  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:59 PM

But whatever we may imagine of the thing, the idea of a grain of sand is not distinguishable, nor separable into twenty, much less into a thousand, ten thousand, or an infinite number of different ideas. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 603  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 09:59 PM

really? r u serious?
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 603-5  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 10:00 PM

It is the same case with the impressions of the senses as with the ideas of the imagination. Put a spot of ink upon paper, fix your eye upon that spot, and retire to such a distance, that, at last you lose sight of it; it is plain, that the moment before it vanished the image or impression was perfectly indivisible. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 605  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 10:01 PM

buuut. still entirely subjective. it is always indivisible or infinitesimal if you cannot see
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 607-9  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 10:01 PM

A microscope or telescope, which renders them visible, produces not any new rays of light, but only spreads those, which always flowed from them; and by that means both gives parts to impressions, which to the naked eye appear simple and uncompounded, and advances to a minimum, what was formerly imperceptible. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 612-14  | Added on Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 10:03 PM

The only defect of our senses is, that they give us disproportioned images of things, and represent as minute and uncompounded what is really great and composed of a vast number of parts. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 622-25  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:42 AM

Wherever ideas are adequate representations of objects, the relations, contradictions and agreements of the ideas are all applicable to the objects; and this we may in general observe to be the foundation of all human knowledge. But our ideas are adequate representations of the most minute parts of extension; and through whatever divisions and subdivisions we may suppose these parts to be arrived at, they can never become inferior to some ideas, which we form. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 626-28  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:43 AM

Every thing capable of being infinitely divided contains an infinite number of parts; otherwise the division would be stopt short by the indivisible parts, which we should immediately arrive at. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 628-31  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:44 AM

If therefore any finite extension be infinitely divisible, it can be no contradiction to suppose, that a finite extension contains an infinite number of parts: And vice versa, if it be a contradiction to suppose, that a finite extension contains an infinite number of parts, no finite extension can be infinitely divisible. But that this latter supposition is absurd, I easily convince myself by the consideration of my clear ideas. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 634-37  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:45 AM

When I stop in the addition of parts, the idea of extension ceases to augment; and were I to carry on the addition in infinitum, I clearly perceive, that the idea of extension must also become infinite. Upon the whole, I conclude, that the idea of all infinite number of parts is individually the same idea with that of an infinite extension; that no finite extension is capable of containing an infinite number of parts; and consequently that no finite extension is infinitely divisible [FN 3.]. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 642-44  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:46 AM

I may subjoin another argument proposed by a noted author [Mons. MALEZIEU], which seems to me very strong and beautiful. It is evident, that existence in itself belongs only to unity, and is never applicable to number, but on account of the unites, of which the number is composed. Twenty men may be said to exist; but it is only because one, two, three, four, &c. are existent, 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 644  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:46 AM

integers... geez
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 652-56  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:49 AM

All this reasoning takes place with regard to time; along with an additional argument, which it may be proper to take notice of. It is a property inseparable from time, and which in a manner constitutes its essence, that each of its parts succeeds another, and that none of them, however contiguous, can ever be co-existent. For the same reason, that the year 1737 cannot concur with the present year 1738 every moment must be distinct from, and posterior or antecedent to another. It is certain then, that time, as it exists, must be composed of indivisible moments. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 668-71  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:53 AM

It is true, mathematicians are wont to say, that there are here equally strong arguments on the other side of the question, and that the doctrine of indivisible points is also liable to unanswerable objections. Before I examine these arguments and objections in detail, I will here take them in a body, and endeavour by a short and decisive reason to prove at once, that it is utterly impossible they can have any just foundation. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 671-73  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:53 AM

It is an established maxim in metaphysics, That whatever the mind clearly conceives, includes the idea of possible existence, or in other words, that nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. We can form the idea of a golden mountain, and from thence conclude that such a mountain may actually exist. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 679-81  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:54 AM

These consequences we may carry one step farther, and conclude that all the pretended demonstrations for the infinite divisibility of extension are equally sophistical; since it is certain these demonstrations cannot be just without proving the impossibility of mathematical points; which it is an evident absurdity to pretend to. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 681  | Added on Thursday, March 28, 2019, 04:55 AM

giant eyeroll
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 682-84  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:48 AM

No discovery coued have been made more happily for deciding all controversies concerning ideas, than that abovementioned, that impressions always take the precedency of them, and that every idea, with which the imagination is furnished, first makes its appearance in a correspondent impression. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 684  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:48 AM

too easy
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 685-86  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:49 AM

though many of our ideas are so obscure, that it is almost impossible even for the mind, which forms them, to tell exactly their nature and composition. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 704-6  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:51 AM

All abstract ideas are really nothing but particular ones, considered in a certain light; but being annexed to general terms, they are able to represent a vast variety, and to comprehend objects, which, as they are alike in some particulars, are in others vastly wide of each other. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Highlight Loc. 717-18  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:53 AM

From these phenomena, as well as from many others, we may conclude, that time cannot make its appearance to the mind, either alone, or attended with a steady unchangeable object, but is always discovered some PERCEIVABLE succession of changeable objects. 
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 718  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:53 AM

time is change. hmm.
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A Treatise of Human Nature (David Hume)
- Note Loc. 726  | Added on Friday, March 29, 2019, 03:55 AM

but this defines things too subjectively... it seems

June

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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 30 | Loc. 517-19  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:12 PM

“You were wrong,” she said. She could not sustain her anger. She could not look at his tentacled, alien face and sustain anger—but she had to say the words. “You destroyed what wasn’t yours,” she said. “You completed an insane act.” “You are still alive,” he said. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 32 | Loc. 546-50  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:14 PM

Memory of a division is passed on biologically. I remember every one that has taken place in my family since we left the homeworld.” “Do you remember your homeworld itself? I mean, could you get back to it if you wanted to?” “Go back?” His tentacles smoothed again. “No, Lilith, that’s the one direction that’s closed to us. This is our homeworld now.” He gestured around them from what seemed to be a glowing ivory sky to what seemed to be brown soil. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 36 | Loc. 613-15  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:19 PM

She was comforted by his words and ashamed of needing comfort. How had she become so dependent on him? She shook her head. The answer was obvious. He wanted her dependent. That was the reason for her continued isolation from her own kind. She was to be dependent on an Oankali—dependent and trusting. To hell with that! 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 38 | Loc. 648-55  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:22 PM

He tried to lead her into his family’s woods, but she held back. “There’s something I need to understand now,” she said. “You call it a trade. You’ve taken something you value from us and you’re giving us back our world. Is that it? Do you have all you want from us?” “You know it isn’t,” he said softly. “You’ve guessed that much.” She waited, staring at him. “Your people will change. Your young will be more like us and ours more like you. Your hierarchical tendencies will be modified and if we learn to regenerate limbs and reshape our bodies, we’ll share those abilities with you. That’s part of the trade. We’re overdue for it.” “It is crossbreeding, then, no matter what you call it.” “It’s what I said it was. A trade. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 39 | Loc. 670-73  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:23 PM

“I think I wish your people had left me on Earth,” she whispered. “If this is what they found me for, I wish they’d left me.” Medusa children. Snakes for hair. Nests of night crawlers for eyes and ears. He sat down on the bare ground, and after a minute of surprise, she sat opposite him, not knowing why, simply following his movement. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 44 | Loc. 713-17  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:32 PM

“You see?” the ooloi asked softly. She frowned at it. It was naked as were the others except for Jdahya. This did not bother her even at close quarters as much as she had feared it might. But she did not like the ooloi. It was smug and it tended to treat her condescendingly. It was also one of the creatures scheduled to bring about the destruction of what was left of humanity. And in spite of Jdahya’s claim that the Oankali were not hierarchical, the ooloi seemed to be the head of the house. Everyone deferred to it. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 45 | Loc. 720-22  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:32 PM

Looking at Kahguyaht, she took pleasure in the knowledge that the Oankali themselves used the neuter pronoun in referring to the ooloi. Some things deserved to be called “it.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 51 | Loc. 818-23  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:39 PM

“We altered them genetically—changed some of their requirements, enabled them to respond to certain chemical stimuli from us.” She looked at the ooloi. “It’s one thing to do that to a plant. It’s another to do it to intelligent, self-aware beings.” “We do what we do, Lilith.” “You could kill us. You could make mules of our children—sterile monsters.” “No,” it said. “There was no life at all on your Earth when our ancestors left our original homeworld, and in all that time we’ve never done such a thing.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 58 | Loc. 940-44  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 07:48 PM

“Then … at least let me make my own records to help me learn your language. We humans need to do such things to help us remember.” “No.” She frowned. “But … what do you mean, ‘no’? We do.” “I cannot give you such things. Not to write or to read.” “Why!” “It is not allowed. The people have decided that it should not be allowed.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 72 | Loc. 1162-67  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:03 PM

“You would sleep through it the way you did when Ooan Jdahya corrected your tumor.” “Ooan Jdahya? Jdahya’s ooloi parent did that? Not Kahguyaht?” “Yes. It was done before my parents were mated.” “Good.” No reason at all to be grateful to Kahguyaht. “Lilith?” Nikanj laid a many-fingered hand—a sixteen-fingered hand—on her arm. “It will be like this. A touch. Then a … a small puncture. That’s all you’ll feel. When you wake up the change will be made.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 72 | Loc. 1168-74  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:03 PM

“I don’t want to be changed!” There was a long silence. Finally it said, “Are you afraid?” “I don’t have a disease! Forgetting things is normal for most humans! I don’t need anything done to my brain!” “Would it be so bad to remember better? To remember the way Sharad did—the way I do?” “What’s frightening is the idea of being tampered with.” She drew a deep breath. “Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain. I don’t want—” “Who you are won’t be changed. I’m not old enough to make the experience pleasant for you, but I’m old enough to function as an ooloi in this way. If I were unfit, others would have noticed by now.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 73 | Loc. 1186-89  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:05 PM

Ayre died—was dead when the ambulance arrived, though paramedics tried to revive him. Sam only half died. He had head injuries—brain damage. It took him three months to finish what the accident had begun. Three months to die. He was conscious some of the time—more or less—but he did not know anyone. His 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 75 | Loc. 1205-16  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:07 PM

“Get out of here!” she shouted. “Get away from me!” It did not move. It continued to speak in the same soft voice. “Ooan says humans won’t be worth talking to for at least a generation.” Its tentacles writhed. “I don’t know how to be with someone I can’t talk to.” “Brain damage isn’t going to improve my conversation,” she said bitterly. “I would rather damage my own brain than yours. I won’t damage either.” It hesitated. “You know you must accept me or Ooan.” She said nothing. “Ooan is an adult. It can give you pleasure. And it is not as … as angry as it seems.” “I’m not looking for pleasure. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I just want to be let alone.” “Yes. But you must trust me or let Ooan surprise you when it’s tired of waiting.” “You won’t do that yourself—won’t just spring it on me?” “No.” “Why not?” “There’s something wrong with doing it that way—surprising people. It’s … treating them as though they aren’t people, as though they aren’t intelligent.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 78 | Loc. 1253-55  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:09 PM

“But what did you mean about failing—” “I was afraid I could never convince you to trust me enough to let me show you what I could do—show you that I wouldn’t hurt you. I was afraid I would make you hate me. For an ooloi to do that … it would be very bad. Worse than I can tell you.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Bookmark on Page 79 | Loc. 1285  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:11 PM


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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 79 | Loc. 1282-88  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:12 PM

Nikanj made a sound of relief—a rubbing together of body tentacles in a way that sounded like stiff paper being crumpled. “Good,” it said. “Mates know what we feel when they stay near us, they know the frustration. Sometimes they think it’s funny.” Lilith was surprised to find herself smiling. “It is, sort of.” “Only for the tormentors. With you there, they’ll torment me less. But before all that …” It stopped, aimed a loose point at her. “Before that, I’ll try to find an English-speaking human for you. One as much like you as possible. Ooan will not stand in the way of your meeting one now.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 88 | Loc. 1428-33  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:20 PM

“Why are you going back?” Titus asked. “Why do you want to spend your life living like a cavewoman?” “I don’t.” His eyes widened. “Then why don’t you—” “We don’t have to forget what we know,” she said. She smiled to herself. “I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. We don’t have to go back to the Stone Age. We’ll have a lot of hard work, sure, but with what the Oankali will teach us and what we already know, we’ll at least have a chance.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 89 | Loc. 1447-53  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:21 PM

“If you wanted it,” he said, “they’d let you stay here … with me.” “What, permanently?” “Yeah.” “No.” He put down the small pie that he had not offered to share with her and came over to her. “You know they expect you to say no,” he said. “They brought you here so you could say it and they could be sure all over again that they were right about you.” He stood tall and broad, too close to her, too intense. She realized unhappily that she was afraid of him. “Surprise them,” he continued softly. “Don’t do what they expect—just for once. Don’t let them play you like a puppet.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 89 | Loc. 1454-56  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:21 PM

She sat still and stared at him. Her mother had looked at her the way she was looking at him now. She had caught herself giving her son the same look when she thought he was doing something he knew was wrong. How much of Titus was still fourteen, still the boy the Oankali had awakened and impressed and enticed and inducted into their own ranks? 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 91 | Loc. 1480-84  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:22 PM

His hands were almost gentle on her. “At least they haven’t until now.” He shook her abruptly. “You know how many kids I got? They say, ‘Your genetic material has been used in over seventy children.’ And I’ve never even seen a woman in all the time I’ve been here.” He stared at her for several seconds and she feared him and pitied him and longed to be away from him. The first human being she had seen in years and all she could do was long to be away from him. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
- Highlight on Page 92 | Loc. 1493-97  | Added on Friday, June 14, 2019, 08:23 PM

“Don’t make yourself their dog!” she pleaded. “Don’t do this!” He kept coming, too far gone to care what she said. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself. He cut her off from the bed by coming over it himself. He cornered her against a wall. “How many times have they made you do this before?” she asked desperately. “Did you have a sister back on Earth? Would you know her now? Maybe they’ve made you do it with your sister.” 
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August

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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 162  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 12:54 AM

Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 575-79  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 03:55 AM

The assembly fell into a prolonged silence. Ahead of them stretched the leaden road of time, terminating somewhere in the mists of the future, where all they could see were flickering flames and luster of blood. The brevity of a human lifespan tormented them as never before, and their hearts soared above the vault of time to join with their descendants and plunge into blood and fire in the icy cold of space, the eventual meeting place for the souls of all soldiers.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1156-58  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 12:21 PM

“You’re one of the calmest people I’ve ever met.” “The calmness comes from cynicism. There’s not much in the world that can make me care.” “Whatever it is, I’ve never seen someone who could stay calm in a situation like this.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1198-1201  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 12:24 PM

“Two. Passive waiting: believing that the outcome of the war depends on scientists and engineers; believing that prior to breakthroughs in basic research and key technologies, the space force is just a pipe dream, and subsequent confusion about the importance of its present work; being satisfied simply with completing tasks related to establishing this military branch; lacking innovation.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1201-5  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 12:25 PM

“Three. Harboring unrealistic fantasies: requesting to use hibernation technology to leap four centuries into the future and take part in the Doomsday Battle directly. A number of younger comrades have already expressed this wish, and one has even submitted a formal application. On the surface, this is a positive state of mind, a desire to throw oneself onto the front lines, but it is essentially just another form of defeatism. Lacking confidence in victory and doubting the significance of our present work, a soldier’s dignity becomes the only pillar sustaining work and life.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1356-66  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 04:37 PM

“She’s alive, isn’t she?” He nodded and sat up. “Rong, I used to think that a character in a novel was controlled by her creator, that she would be whatever the author wanted her to be, and do whatever the author wanted her to do, like God does for us.” “Wrong!” she said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. “Now you realize you were wrong. This is the difference between an ordinary scribe and a literary writer. The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life in the mind of the writer. The writer is unable to control them, and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives like a voyeur. That’s how a classic is made.” “So literature, it turns out, is a perverted endeavor.” “It was like that for Shakespeare and Balzac and Tolstoy, at least. The classic images they created were born from their mental wombs. But today’s practitioners of literature have lost that creativity. Their minds give birth only to shattered fragments and freaks, whose brief lives are nothing but cryptic spasms devoid of reason. Then they sweep up these fragments into a bag they peddle under the label ‘postmodern’ or ‘deconstructionist’ or ‘symbolism’ or ‘irrational.’”
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1386-89  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 04:40 PM

“Look, mountains.” She pointed off in the distance. “Visibility is good today. Those are the Taihang Mountains. They run parallel to this road, and then bend around to form a block in the west, where the road goes into them. I’d say that right now we’re—” “No, no. Don’t say where we are! Once we know where we are, then the world becomes as narrow as a map. When we don’t know, the world feels unlimited.”
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1454-64  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 04:44 PM

“You may need a bit of adjustment, but it’s nothing serious,” the doctor said, after listening to his lengthy narrative. “Nothing serious?” Luo Ji opened his bloodshot eyes wide. “I’m madly in love with a fictional person from a novel of my own creation. I’ve been with her, I’ve traveled with her, and I’ve even broken up with my real-life girlfriend over her. Is that nothing serious to you?” The doctor smiled tolerantly. “Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!” “Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?” “Is that even a question?” “Sure. For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up. It’s as simple as that.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1626-29  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 06:36 PM

“These Wallfacers will be granted extensive powers that will enable them to mobilize and exploit a portion of Earth’s existing military resources. As they carry out their strategic plans, the Wallfacers need not make any explanation for their actions and commands, regardless of how incomprehensible their behavior may be. Monitoring and control of the Wallfacer activity will be undertaken by the UN Planetary Defense Council, the sole institution granted the authority to veto Wallfacer commands under the UN Wallfacer Act.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1633-37  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 06:36 PM

“The Wallfacers are undertaking the most difficult mission in human history. They will truly be on their own, their souls closed off to the world, to the entire universe. Their only communication partner and sole spiritual support will be themselves. Shouldering this great responsibility, they will pass through the long years alone, so let me speak for all humanity and offer them our deepest respect. “Now, on behalf of the United Nations, I will announce the final four Wallfacer candidates as chosen by the UN Planetary Defense Council.”
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1915-19  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 06:52 PM

And once the Wallfacer mission and identity were granted, they could not be refused or abandoned. This impossibility was not due to any individual’s coercion, but because cold logic, as determined by the project’s very nature, meant that once someone became a Wallfacer, an invisible and impenetrable screen was immediately thrown up between them and ordinary people that made their every action significant. And that was what the smiles directed at Wallfacers meant: How are we supposed to know whether or not you have already started work?
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 2931-34  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 10:30 PM

“Because it’s one of the few armed forces available to humanity that uses lives as a weapon. You know, fundamental science has been frozen by the sophons, and this imposes corresponding limitations on advances in computer science and artificial intelligence. In the Doomsday Battle, space fighters will still be piloted by humans, and that requires an army who possesses that spirit. Ball lightning requires a close-range attack.”
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 2942-46  | Added on Sunday, August 11, 2019, 10:31 PM

“On the one hand, thanks to our common enemy, our hatred of the West has faded. On the other, the human race that the Trisolarans want to wipe out includes the hated West, so to us, perishing together would be a joy. So we don’t hate the Trisolarans.” The old man spread his hands. “You see, hatred is a treasure more precious than gold or diamonds, and a weapon keener than any in the world, but now it’s gone. It’s not yours to give back. So the organization, like me, does not have long to live.” Tyler remained silent. “As for Seldon, I’d say his plan is an impossible one.”
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 3562-67  | Added on Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 03:32 AM

“If you won’t think of anything else, then just imagine that Doomsday Battle four centuries from now, and the look in their eyes when they see you! What sort of a person will they see? A man who abandoned the woman he loves most, together with all of humanity? A man unwilling to save all of the world’s children? A man who wouldn’t even save his own child? Are you, as a man, capable of withstanding their gaze?” Luo Ji bent his head in silence. The sound of the nighttime rain falling on grass and lake was like myriad entreaties from another time and space.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 3765-68  | Added on Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 12:28 PM

Only then did his mood leave the track of his thoughts, Zhang Yan’s eyes appearing before his own in the boundless blank white of the natural painting. But he was now able to keep his mood in check and continue turning himself into a thinking machine. A month went by without him knowing it, and then winter came in full force. But he still conducted his lengthy thought process outside, sharpening his mind on the cold.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 6408-10  | Added on Friday, August 30, 2019, 10:55 PM

September

And at any location, so long as you had the appropriate system permissions, you could pull up a complete command console, including a captain’s interface, which effectively made the entire ship, even the passageways and bathrooms, a bridge, command module, captain’s room, and operations room!
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 7228-32  | Added on Friday, September 06, 2019, 10:52 AM

More than two centuries before, in his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke had described a black monolith left on the moon by an advanced alien civilization. Surveyors had measured its dimensions with ordinary rulers and had found a ratio of one to four to nine. When these were rechecked using the most high-precision measurement technology on Earth, the ratio remained an exact one to four to nine, with no error at all. Clarke described it as a “passive yet almost arrogant display of geometrical perfection.” Now, humanity was facing a far more arrogant display of power.
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 7792-97  | Added on Sunday, September 08, 2019, 06:16 AM

Then he began to see symptoms of psychological imbalance among officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel. Most of them started to become increasingly introverted, spending long periods alone with their thoughts and sharply reducing their social interactions. They spoke less and less at meetings, sometimes choosing to become completely silent. Lan Xi noticed that the light had disappeared from their eyes, and their expressions had turned gloomy. They couldn’t look anyone in the eye for fear that others would notice the fog in theirs. When they occasionally met someone’s gaze, they would break away immediately like they had been shocked.…
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The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth's Past) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8258-64  | Added on Sunday, September 08, 2019, 06:51 AM

Contrary to his expectations, his memories of life before becoming a Wallfacer were a blank. All that he could fish out from the sea of memory were a few fragments, and the farther back he went, the fewer there were. Had he really been to high school? Had he really attended primary school? Had he really had a first love? Some of the fragments bore clear scratches, reminding him that those things had indeed taken place. The details were vivid, but the feelings had vanished without a trace. The past was like a handful of sand you thought you were squeezing tightly, but which had already run out through the cracks between your fingers. Memory was a river that had run dry long ago, leaving only scattered gravel in a lifeless riverbed. He had lived life always looking out for the next thing, and whenever he had gained, he had also lost, leaving him with little in the end.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 1931-36  | Added on Tuesday, September 17, 2019, 01:01 AM

October

Final statement made by Captain Neil Scott I don’t have much to say except a warning. Life reached an evolutionary milestone when it climbed onto land from the ocean, but those first fish that climbed onto land ceased to be fish. Similarly, when humans truly enter space and are freed from the Earth, they cease to be human. So, to all of you I say this: When you think about heading into outer space without looking back, please reconsider. The cost you must pay is far greater than you could imagine.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 4928-32  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:06 AM

Cheng Xin realized that she still had two friends. In this brief, nightmarish period of history, she had only these two real friends. If she ended her life now, how would they feel? Her transparent, empty heart tightened and cramped up, as though squeezed by numerous hands. The placid surface of the lake in her mind shattered, and the reflected sunlight burned like fire. Seven years ago, she hadn’t been able to press that red button in front of all of humanity; now, thinking of her two friends, she could not swallow this capsule that would bring her relief. She saw again her boundless weakness. She was nothing.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 5243-46  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:34 AM

The Tianming in Cheng Xin’s memory looked different. During the Staircase Project, he was a haggard, weak, terminal patient; before then, he was a solitary, alienated college student. But though the Tianming of the past had sealed his heart to the outside world, he had also exposed his state in life—it was possible to tell, at a glance, what his basic story was.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 5291-95  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:38 AM

Once they had set aside the mission, this space that contained them, a few light-years across, became their secret world. Indeed, between the two of them, they needed no language; their eyes were able to say everything they needed. Now that she was no longer so focused on the mission, Cheng Xin could feel even more meaning in Tianming’s gaze. She was brought back to her college days, when Tianming had looked at her often in this way. He had been discreet, but her girlish instincts had felt him. Now, his gaze was infused with his maturity, and the sunlight crossed light-years to submerge her in warmth and happiness.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 5373-77  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:48 AM

If the fleet entered a blind region for the sophons, they might lose the sophons in the Solar System forever. If the last situation occurred, then the Trisolarans and humanity would lose all contact, and once again become cosmic strangers. A three-century-long history of warfare and resentment would turn into so much ephemera in the universe. Even if they were to meet again because of fate—as Sophon had predicted—it would be in the distant future. But neither world knew if they had a future.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 5832-36  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 01:11 PM

The bustling cities disappeared and turned into small towns and ranches. Life became calm and dull, with no more changes, no more stimulation and surprises. Yesterday was like today, and today is like tomorrow. The people gradually grew used to this and stopped yearning for a different life. Their memories of the past, like the exotic goods from He’ershingenmosiken, grew fewer with each passing day. People even deliberately tried to forget the past, and also the present. All in all, they no longer wanted stories, so they patterned their life into a storyless one. And so the Storyful Kingdom became the Storyless Kingdom.”
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 6600-6602  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 02:07 PM

“The night I finished building the lighthouse, I took my boat out to the sea to look at it from a distance. And all of a sudden I had a thought: Death is the only lighthouse that is always lit. No matter where you sail, ultimately, you must turn toward it. Everything fades in the world, but Death endures.”
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 6720-22  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 02:24 PM

People had lived that way for five thousand years, and you can’t just say that wasn’t a good life. Even now, the Solar System is basically separated from the rest of the universe. The only people who are in deep space are the thousand or so people on those two spaceships.”
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 7617-19  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:23 PM

She understood that compared to the last era, the Bunker World was not at all an ideal society. The migration to the rim of the Solar System had caused some toxic social conditions, long eliminated by progress, to reemerge. This wasn’t exactly regression, but a kind of spiraling ascent, a necessary condition for the exploration and settlement of new frontiers.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 7663-69  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:27 PM

The sun has set. Mountain, tree, rock, river— All the grand buildings are buried in shadows. People light their lamps with great interest, Delighting in all they can see, Hoping to find what they wish.* * Translator’s Note: The poem is by Xu Yunuo (1894–1958), a modern Chinese poet most prominently associated with the May Fourth Movement.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8094-8100  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:59 PM

“Tell me more about yourself. Your work, your life. I want to tell those who would come later about you,” Cheng Xin said. Wade shook his head. “I am but one of the countless who have died and will die. What is there to tell?” Cheng Xin knew that what divided them wasn’t just this transparent barrier, but also the deepest chasm in this world, a chasm that could never be bridged. “Do you have anything to say to me?” Cheng Xin asked. She was surprised that she wanted to hear his answer. “Thank you for the cigars.” It took a long while before Cheng Xin understood that this was what Wade wanted to say to her. His last words. All his words.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8094-8102  | Added on Monday, October 21, 2019, 11:59 PM

“Tell me more about yourself. Your work, your life. I want to tell those who would come later about you,” Cheng Xin said. Wade shook his head. “I am but one of the countless who have died and will die. What is there to tell?” Cheng Xin knew that what divided them wasn’t just this transparent barrier, but also the deepest chasm in this world, a chasm that could never be bridged. “Do you have anything to say to me?” Cheng Xin asked. She was surprised that she wanted to hear his answer. “Thank you for the cigars.” It took a long while before Cheng Xin understood that this was what Wade wanted to say to her. His last words. All his words. They sat in silence, neither looking at the other. Time turned into a stagnant pool that drowned them. Then, the tremors of the space city adjusting its position returned Cheng Xin to reality. She stood up slowly and softly said good-bye.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8535-37  | Added on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 02:40 AM

It was dusk, and he and Ding Yi and he had come to the surface from the underground city and taken a car into the desert. Ding Yi liked to stroll and think in the desert, and even to hold his lectures there sometimes. His students hated the experience, but he explained his eccentric habit this way: “I like desolate places. Life is a distraction for physics.”
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Bookmark Loc. 8565  | Added on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 02:42 AM


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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8565-67  | Added on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 02:42 AM

She probably knew things we don’t even know now. Do you think only sophons create illusions? Do you think the only illusions exist in the particle accelerator terminals? Do you think the rest of the universe is as pure as a virgin, waiting for us to explore?
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8843-46  | Added on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 03:00 AM

They began to turn the wheel to open the second door. Cheng Xin was certain that even if they hadn’t closed the first door, they would still have been able to open the second. The only thing that prevented air from leaking was following the instructions. In this low-technology environment, there was no automatic mechanism to prevent errors.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8862-65  | Added on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 03:02 AM

In Cheng Xin’s and AA’s eyes, Luo Ji had also changed. The stately Swordholder was gone. They didn’t know that the cynical, playful Luo Ji in front of them now was a return to the Luo Ji from four centuries ago, before he had become a Wallfacer. That Luo Ji had returned, as if awakening from hibernation, but the passage of time had moderated him, and filled him with more transcendence.
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Death's End (The Three-Body Problem) (Cixin Liu)
- Highlight Loc. 8948-52  | Added on Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 03:10 AM

True. What was there to say? Civilization was like a mad dash that lasted five thousand years. Progress begot more progress; countless miracles gave birth to more miracles; humankind seemed to possess the power of gods; but in the end, the real power was wielded by time. Leaving behind a mark was tougher than creating a world. At the end of civilization, all they could do was the same thing they had done in the distant past, when humanity was but a babe: Carving words into stone.
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