Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was
Angélica Gorodischer
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Why say 'the world is complicated' and stop there? I say the world is complicated but not incomprehensible. Only you have to look at it steadily. Isn't it true a person's shoulder hurts sometimes because they've got a disorder in their stomach? And then what does a stupid doctor do? Order massages for the shoulder. What does a wise doctor do? He takes time to think about it, watches the patient carefully, gives him some medicine for his stomach, and the pain in his shoulder goes away. Better yet, he explains to his patients what they have to do to keep their stomach from getting out of order. One day his patient's going to get old and die, just like himself, just like us, and one day, incredible as it may seem, the Empire's going to die, and how foolish people are who whine about it, and whine about how complicated the world is. A seamstress's room is complicated too, but even at night, with the lights out, she can reach out in the darkness and find the yellow thread, the needles, the pincushion. We couldn't, because we don't know the order things are in, in the seamstress's room. And we can't see the order the world is in. But all the same it's there, right under our eyes.”
“As the wise say, a sensible man looks after his garden, and a coward looks after his money; a just man cares about his city and a crazy man cares about the government; and a wise man studies the thickness of fern-fronds.”
“It's much more stimulating to be marginal, to act without recognition, than to receive public thanks.”
“Yes, dangerous: think a little, if you’re capable of thought, and you’ll see that it’s safer to obey a law however stupid it may be than to act freely; because to act freely, unless you’re as wicked as certain emperors, is to seek a just law; and if you make a mistake, you’ve taken the first step towards power, which is what destroys men.”
“Three days after that Emperor Ferret signed an insane decree: every man who wished to stay at court must be castrated. He was mad, no doubt of it; but the men who preferred mutilation to leaving the court were madder.”
“This tent's open to the south and north, and the roads are broad and lead to green lands and black lands and there's plenty to do in the world - sift flour, hammer iron, beat rugs, plow furrows, gossip about the neighbors, cast fishing nets - but what there is to do here is listen.”
“The little boy met with his teachers and studied history, geography, mathematics, music, strategy, politics, dance, falconry, and all the things an emperor has to know so that later on he can do everything that makes him feel that doing it makes him the emperor.”
“Maybe you have to be a bit touched to be a ruler, good or bad. For, as the wise say, a sensible man looks after his garden and a coward looks after his money; a just man cares about his city and a crazy man cares about the government; and a wise man studies the thickness of fern-fronds.”
“He was a good emperor. I won't say he is perfect, because he wasn't; no, my friends, no man is perfect and an emperor less than anybody, because he holds power in his hands, and power is as dangerous as an animal not fully tamed, dangerous as acid, sweet and fatal as poisoned honey.”
“Even misfortune has its advantages say the wise. Of course the wise say stupid things, because even wisdom has its foolishness, say I.”
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Book Keywords:
ruler, wise, misfortune, justice, wisdom, listen, crazy, power, insane, coward
