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Assigning blame is a fixation of an ineffective mind.

Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.

Filidor marveled at the intransigence of adolescence, not remembering that he had possessed an abundance of the same quality not many years since.

Life is a hopeless rear guard action against an overwhelming foe; still how can we not admire those who battle on regardless?

“From within such a calcified culture, no change can be generated; the impetus for reform must arise from without. Hence, the external threat posed by Hunan Diath.”

“Who does not exist,” said Filidor.

“Who need not exist,” said Gaskarth, “so long as the idea can do its work.”

“What is your theory?” my assistant asked, but again I declined to answer. A mistaken theory that never went farther than its originator’s mind does not count as an error.

“Who was it who said that irony is the fundamental operating principle of the universe?”

“I believe,” I said, “that it was Henghis Hapthorn.”

Well, as I say, authority is always lawfully relinquished, but sometimes the legitimacy is acquired after the relinquishment.

“You mean retroactively?”

I mean that cause and effect are not always arranged in an ideal sequence.

“In other words,” Filidor translated, “not only do victors write the histories, but usurpers also rewrite the rule book to justify the illicit seizure of office.”

Perhaps not the most felicitous manner of putting it, but essentially correct.

“I am surprised the people put up with such shenanigans. They should rise up.”

Unwittingly, I am sure, you put your finger on the flaw in your own reasoning.

“How so?”

You said, “They should rise up,” not “We should rise up.” As long as it is a matter to be solved by others, it will not be.

Does not the acceptance of a spurious perfection end the search for true perfection?

Insanity was not unknown among the wealthy. Indeed, some forms of madness had sometimes been cultivated as fashionable accessories.

Coming whence you do, you doubtless assume that the mores and customs of your own land arise from the workings of simple human nature. But human nature is far from simple, and what appears natural in your own milieu may seem chillingly alien when transported into some foreign sphere.

She seized hungrily upon the stray crumbs of conversation that fell to her.