And what had he wanted? He'd never sat down to think about it. But mostly, he wanted yesterday to be different from today.

The world is a globe — the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.

It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.

You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, traveling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abscesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say "yes."

...no-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away... The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory.

It is a mistake trying to cheer up camels. You may as well drop meringues into a black hole.