You know the theorem of Pythagoras?” “The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.” “That’s exactly it. And is that true for every example you’ve tried?” “Yes.
My brother maintains that sinners will be forgiven more readily than those who are righteous,’ he said. ‘I have not sinned very much; perhaps I have not sinned enough to earn the forgiveness of God.
Write some letters.” “Don’t want to.” “Bake a cake to give that boy a slice of.” “He might come while I’m still making it, and then we’d have to make conversation for an hour and a half till it was ready. Anyway, we’ve got some biscuits.” “Well, I give up,” he said.
Instead, we should delicately and subtly undermine the idea that truth and facts are possible in the first place. Once the people have become doubtful about the truth of anything, all kinds of things will be open to us.
Its purpose was to defend democracy in this country, first of all. Then to defend the principles of freedom of thought and expression.
Good intentions never wrote a story worth reading.
Never, never,” she breathed into his fur, and he pressed his beating heart to hers.
Much ingenious interpretation of story is little more than seeing pleasing patterns in the sparks of a fire, but it does no harm.
Another crack, and this time the bullet went deep somewhere inside, seeking out the centre of his life. He thought: it won’t find it there. Hester’s my centre.
But we shouldn’t believe things because it makes us happy to, she thought. We should believe things because they’re true, and if that makes us unhappy, that’s very unfortunate, but it’s not the reason of fault.
You scribes and Pharisees, if you’re listening – be damned to you. You take endless scruples over the tiniest matters of the law, while you let the great things like justice and mercy and faith go unnoticed and forgotten. You strain the gnats out of your wine, but you ignore the camel standing in it.
What is he? A friend or an enemy? The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.
All the time I was away,” Lyra said, “I never thought about that. All I thought about was just the time I was in, just the present. There were plenty of times when I thought I didn’t get a future at all. And now... Well, suddenly finding I’ve got a whole life to live, but no... but no idea what to do with it, well, it’s like having the alethiometer but no idea how to read it.
And if we – later on – she was whispering shakily, If we meet someone we like, and if we marry them, then we must be good to them, and not make comparisons all the time and wish we were married to each other instead... But just keep coming here once a year, just for an hour, just to be together...
As soon as men who believe they’re doing God’s will get hold of power, whether it’s in a household or a village or in Jerusalem or in Rome itself, the devil enters into them.
To ask the question and wait for the answer is to know that there will be no answer.
Does the tree say to the sparrow “Get out, you don’t belong here?” Does the tree say to the hungry man “This fruit is not for you?” Does the tree test the loyalty of the beasts before it allows them into the shade?
How can the weather have a state of mind?” said Papadimitriou. The gyptian said, “You think the weather is only out there? It’s in here too,” and tapped his head. “So do you mean that the weather’s state of mind is just our state of mind?” “Nothing is just anything,” the gyptian replied, and would say no more.
The world is a cruel place sometimes, and warm-hearted people do most of the good in it. And much of the time, they’re mocked and scorned for their pains.
And thus the prophecy that the Master of Jordan College had made to the Librarian, that Lyra would make a great betrayal and it would hurt her terribly, was fulfilled.