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"It is not peace when cruelty reigns, when stronger men steal from farmers and craftworkers, when the child can be enslaved or the old thrown out to starve, and no one lifts a hand. That is not peace: that is conquest, and evil."

-- Elizabeth Moon, The Deed of Paksenarrion



"We humans have so much in common that we can't seem to speak of comfortably: a genetic code, a niche on a small planet in a vast galaxy in an infinite universe; the underrated luxury of being at the top of our food chain; a familiar range of passions and fears; a mysterious ill-defined evolution from creatures whose thoughts were like a vapor, and before that bits of chemical and chance so small they pass right through the mind's sieve without its being able to fully grasp them. We have in common, despite our extraordinary powers of invention, subtlety, and know-how, an ability to bore ourselves that is so horrifying we devote much of our short lives to activities designed mainly to make us seem more interesting to ourselves. We have in common a world our senses know voluptuously, from one splayed moment to the next, the wind touching one's chapped lips, a just-forgotten chore, the small unremarkable acts of mercy and heroism parents and lovers perform each day, the collective sort of creatures we are, whose qualities embarrass us when we stumble upon them in ourselves, but which we're glad to epitomize in movie stars, sports figures, and politicians -- people like Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon, or Thomas Edison spending the last of his days in Florida trying to make rubber from goldenrod. We have in common a fidgeting, blooming, ever-startling universe, whose complex laws we all obey, whether we're born in Tierra del Fuego or Svalbard.

"We're each a sac of chemicals, forged in the sun, that can somehow contemplate itself, even if we don't always know where our pancreas is, and are troubled most days by mundane matters. When we meet, at parties or on the street, we nonetheless feel like strangers. When we find ourselves alone together in an elevator, it is as if we have been caught at some naughty act; we can't even bring ourselves to meet each other's eyes."

-- Diane Ackerman, The Human Age , pp. 306-307.