27 quotes
It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.
Green Mars (1993)
One sign of a good action is that in retrospect it appears inevitable.
Green Mars (1993)
But nothing lasts, not even stone, not even despair.
Green Mars (1993)
Every generation is its own secret society.
Green Mars (1993)
Rituals should have some unpleasantness, or you don’t appreciate them properly.
Green Mars (1993)
What we need is equality without conformity.
Green Mars (1993)
Revolution suspends habit as well as law. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, people abhor anarchy.
Green Mars (1993)
Anyone can agree that things should be fair, and the world just. The way to get there is always the real problem.
Green Mars (1993)
Conspiracy theory was tremendously popular, always and forever. People wanted such catastrophes to mean something more than mere individual madness, and so the hunt was on.
Green Mars (1993)
Master and slave wear the yoke together. Anarchy is the only true freedom.
Green Mars (1993)
In the random flux of universal contingency, nothing mattered; and yet, and yet...
Green Mars (1993)
We must not throw the baby socialism out with the Stalinist bathwater, or we lose many concepts of obvious fairness that we need.
Green Mars (1993)
If enough data points trouble the theory, the theory may be wrong. If the theory is basic, the paradigm may have to change.
Green Mars (1993)
No step along the way had seemed more than a little thing; but altogether it came to something rather monstrous.
Green Mars (1993)
“We could have a contest. Who does Jackie listen to least?”
Maya laughed out loud. “Everyone would win.”
Green Mars (1993)
Nakedness was dangerous to the social order, she thought, because it revealed too much reality.
Green Mars (1993)
Michael was so stubbornly optimistic that it made him stupid sometimes, or at least painful to be around.
Green Mars (1993)
When she realized what she was doing she snorted in disgust, at herself and at the pervasiveness of politics—how it could infect everything if you let it.
Green Mars (1993)
Nadia shook her head, marveling at the capacity people had for ignoring what they had in common, and fighting bitterly over whatever small differences existed between them.
Green Mars (1993)
Maya was very insistent that they learn their math well. “You’re getting a horrible education,” she would say, shaking her head darkly. “But if you learn your math you can catch up later.”
Green Mars (1993)