John Christopher Quotes

More and more I had come to see the Capped as lacking what seemed to me the essence of humanity, the vital spark of defiance against the rulers of the world.

His anger was as great as mine, but hot where mine was cold.

A man faced death, but when death drew back forgot it until the next time.

The secret of success in battle lies often not so much in the use of one's own strength but in the exploitation of the other side's weaknesses.

What men do matters more than what they know.

I think before I act---and then think again. I am not entirely a coward, but I do not lose myself in action as you do.

He said, speaking more to himself than to me: 'It was knowledge I sought. Knowledge which is clean and pure, far above the cheating and deceiving in which most men spend their lives.'And do you not find it,' I asked, 'this knowledge which you prize?'In part,' he said. 'I find other things, too. Things I do not desire but must accept. There is still cheating and deceiving.

Fritz was melancholic by nature, and could tolerate his own gloom. I do not think this is so with you, who are sanguine and impatient. In your case, remorse and despondency could be crippling.

We all have to learn to live with our losses, and to use our regrets to spur us on in the future.

And a leader has to command confidence, and consent.

Some people are oil and water.

Truth does not surround itself with lies.

I was remembering the things we had done together, the times we had had. It would have been pleasant to preserve that comradeship in the days that came after. Pleasant, but alas, impossible. That which had brought us together had gone, and now our paths diverged, according to our natures and needs. We would meet again, from time to time, but always a little more as strangers; until perhaps at last, as old men with only memories left, we could sit together and try to share them.

The order should not have been given,' she said. 'It was not done for the city but for your private ends.'I shook my head. 'There is no difference.'You believe that?'A Prince must, or he is no Prince.

People may be persuaded that the machine is doing good. In fact, good is only capable of being done on a small scale. Evil is more versatile. You can hate those you have never seen, all the vast multitudes of them, but you can only love those you know — and that with difficulty.

In the realm of dream and imagination all men are equal.

What tricks the mind is what the mind is glad to be tricked by.

Before you have faith you must believe, and before you believe there must be evidence of some sort to persuade the mind. Faith is remembering that evidence and holding to it against all that seems to challenge or contradict it.

Morality, for all the conditioning to which the human mind has been and is subjected, is always a personal choice in the last analysis.

We had been friends. We could not become strangers. It left only one thing: we must be enemies.

And though I remember her name I cannot recall her face. All things pass.

Even if it is nonsense, it is often useful to know what kind of nonsense men believe.