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Western philosophy and science have for the most part been committed to the Simplicity Theory of Truth: the simplest theory that accounts for the data is the true theory. (Theories are simplest which postulate the fewest entities, require the fewest hypotheses, generate predictions by the fewest calculations, etc.) ...If someone believes that the world is made for him to have dominion over and he is made to exploit it, he must believe that he and the world are so made that he can, at least in principle, achieve and maintain dominion over everything. But you can’t put things to use if you don’t know how they work. So he must believe that he can, at least in principle, understand everything. If the world exists for man, it must be usably intelligible, which means it must be simple enough for him to understand. A usable universe is an intelligible universe is a simple universe. ...And so it goes with the philosophy and the science of The Arrogant Eye.

I love to live vicariously, in a book or a holo, but I think I can stand one dose of reality before it’s my time.

You were right, it’s one big open-air asylum. Virtue nodded solemnly and glanced back at the church. Yeah, but there’s a couple of saints mixed in with the crazies.

A geologist should be well versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, zoology, comparative anatomy, botany; in short, in every science relating to organic and inorganic nature. ...But the brief duration of human life, and our limited powers, are so far from permitting us to aspire to such extensive acquisitions, that excellence even in one department is within the reach of few, and those individuals most effectually promote the general progress, who concentrate their thoughts on a limited portion of the field of inquiry.

The system of scholastic disputations encouraged in the Universities of the middle ages had unfortunately trained men to habits of indefinite argumentation, and they often preferred absurd and extravagant propositions, because greater skill was required to maintain them; the end and object of such intellectual combats being victory and not truth.

When we study history we obtain a more profound insight into human nature by instituting a comparison between the present and former states of society.

In a rude state of society all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.

“In my dreams I sign chits and file papers,” Nikoros muttered. “Then I awake to sign real chits and file real papers. I imagine my grave marker will be carved as a writing desk. ‘Here lies Nikoros Via Lupa, wifeless and heirless, but gods how he could alphabetize!’”

Reflected here is life as I lived it, my thoughts and feelings as I remember them. Here, too, are my personal exchanges with others. IN reconstructing them, I have relied on my knowledge of opinions held, and my recollection of articulated events.

Memory seems a fragile spirit. It may be a river of reality that fathers dreams and desires and change in its flow. Nevertheless, I have tried to be faithful to both fact and feeling.

“You need money that badly?”

“As a tool, certainly. Its application is simple and universally effective.”

Push your luck, gorgeous, and eventually luck pushes back.

“My responsibility was to tell you the truth, not wrap you in swaddling clothes.” She raised her hood again, half-veiling her face in shadow. “Nor protect you from your own badly aimed temper.”