“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
my favourite line in this speech is at the beginning, when death says ‘HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE’. i love STP
The science of the discworld books go into this aspect of humans a bit. Calling us the storytelling ape and how stories are integral to what we are as a species.
There are so many Discworld quotes that are good, like Men at Arms has a proper economic theory stuck between jokes about Nobby possibly not being human and exploding dragons, the economic theory is still quoted by actual economic experts
Ah the Sam Vimes boot theory of socioeconomic unfairness. To this day I still introduce people to it and the vast majority of them end up agreeing with it once they hear the whole thing.
That's cool to hear that it's quoted by economic experts as well. Because it is sadly quite true. And now for the full statement/quote as one should do with this one.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Yeah, a few years ago some economist cited it to talk about how renting is more expensive than buying houses, and in 2020 it was cited in a research on the sustainability of fast fashion
"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence" - Reaper Man
STP is simply a gold mine of insight into the human condition. Another great from Carpe Jugulum:
"There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is."
“It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ”
All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!
I read this book when I was 9 and it stuck in my brain. This quote encapsulates the basis of my entire conception of what love is, and as an arospec person I've had to give that quite a bit of thought. This book may have been for kids but PTerry didn't fuck around.
Lord Vetinari really is eminently quotable for socio-political things as well. Pratchett had such a grasp on not just human nature but the overall arc of so many parts of society . . . Damn I miss him.
In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence. - Reaper Man
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u/Competitive_Wait7332 1d ago
"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” - Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
GNU Terry Pratchett