If you don’t know the men at your back by name, don’t be surprised if they won’t follow you into battle. On the other hand, don’t be surprised if they will, either, because there are countless other factors you must take into account. Leadership is a slippery commodity, not easily manufactured or understood.

War is like any other bad relationship. Of course you want out, but at what price? And perhaps more importantly, once you get out, will you be any better off?" - Quellcrist Falconer

The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.

We all get our dreams stamped on from time to time, right? And if it didn’t hurt, what kind of second-rate dreams would they be?

For all that we have done, as a civilization, as individuals, the universe is not stable, and nor is any single thing within it. Stars consume themselves, the universe itself rushes apart, and we ourselves are composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells in temporary alliance, replicating and decaying and housed within, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked carbon code memory. This is reality, this is self knowledge, and the perception of it will, of course, make you dizzy.

In the future, maybe quantum mechanics will teach us something equally chilling about exactly how we exist from moment to moment of what we like to think of as time.

Science casts a long black shadow back over who we think we are, and where it falls the temperature falls with it. Its touch is chilly and unforgiving.