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Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.

Bernard Beckett

The people came to fear even their closest neighbors. At the level of the individual, the community, and the nation, people sought signs of others’ ill intentions; and everywhere they looked, they found them, for this is what looking does.
BERNARD BECKETT

Community Everyone Intention Level Nation Neighbour People
Many scholars have complained of our tendency to see history only in conflicts, but I am not convinced they are right. It is in conflict that our values are exposed.
BERNARD BECKETT

Conflict History Tendencies
In the end, living is defined by dying.
BERNARD BECKETT

Death Dying Ends
I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.
BERNARD BECKETT

Book Ideas Interruption People Reader
I cannot choose to ignore this feeling, of life slowly bleeding out of me. I cannot ignore the fact that life only makes sense to me when I see a smile, or feel another hand in mine.
BERNARD BECKETT

Bleeding Feelings Hands
This is always the problem with building heroes. To keep them pure, we must build them stupid. The world is built on compromise and uncertainty, and such a place is too complex for heroes to flourish.
BERNARD BECKETT

Compromise Hero Stupid World
Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.
BERNARD BECKETT

Compilant Host Parasites
I cant see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but theres no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ability Belief Beyond Evidence Human World
Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?
BERNARD BECKETT

Indifference Plague Saying Wracked
A society that fears knowledge is a society that fears itself.
BERNARD BECKETT

Fear Knowledge Society
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.
BERNARD BECKETT

Curiosity Optimism Superstitions
The mind is not a machine, it is an idea. And the Idea resists all attempts to control it.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ideas Machine Mind
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence.
BERNARD BECKETT

Belief Fear Optimistic Problem Years
… from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.
BERNARD BECKETT

Fear Population Vantage Point
Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ideas Mind Together Wonderful
Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory.
BERNARD BECKETT

Consciousness Feels Memories

Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.

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Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.

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Popular Authors

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