Reasonable argument is impossible when authority becomes the arbiter.

One bachelor is an irritation. Ten thousand bachelors are a war.

The criminal misuse of time was pointing out the mistakes. Catching them―noticing them―that was essential. If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement. The part of the man's statement that was true, however, was about the uselessness of speaking up. If I know that the teacher is wrong, and say nothing, then I remain the only one who knows, and that gives me an advantage over those who believe the teacher.

And yet.. even if you had been right, it would only have been by accident. A broken clock is right two times a day.

Evil people naturally assume that you will use that power exactly as they would use it.

I have lived in the only decades I could have lived in, and hope to live through at least a few more.

Ender stepped under the water and rinsed himself, took the sweat of combat and let it run down the drain. All gone, except they recycled it and we'll be drinking Bonzo's blood water in the morning. All the life gone out of it, but his blood just the same, his blood and my sweat, washed down in their stupidity or cruelty or whatever it was that made them let it happen.