Iain Pears Quotes

#1. The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place. - Author: Iain Pears

#2. I learned that I' have to be detached if I was ever to achieve anything at all. - Author: Iain Pears

#3. I knew salesmen, they made good murderers. - Author: Iain Pears

#4. She was looking for something I could never give her." Again his dark eyes bored into Julia's mind. "You have something of the same about you, young woman. Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself. - Author: Iain Pears

#5. Rosie digested the information, but not the cake. Her mother was strict about eating between meals. 'A fat girl will never find a good man, Rosie,' was her view, handed down to her by Great-aunt Jessie, a woman of many cliches. - Author: Iain Pears

#6. His idleness was his refuge, and in this he was like many others in [occupied] France in that period; laziness became political. - Author: Iain Pears

#7. For, in his opinion, to study nature was a form of worship. - Author: Iain Pears

#8. For men are held above their fellows by the gossamer of reputation, which is so soft and fragile a breath can blow it away. - Author: Iain Pears

#9. I have a theory that too much learning unbalances the mind. - Author: Iain Pears

#10. An in experienced traveler would imagine that their land contains the finest buildings, the biggest towns, the richest, best-fed, happiest people in the world. - Author: Iain Pears

#11. In a world of chemically induced sanity, a little lunacy confers immense advantages. - Author: Iain Pears

#12. Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions. - Author: Iain Pears

#13. Caius was one of those who gloried in his ignorance, called his lack of letters purity, scorned any subtlety of thought or expression. A man for his time, indeed. - Author: Iain Pears

#14. For the first time, she did want more. She did not know what she wanted, knew that it was dangerous and that she should rest content with what she had, but she knew an emptiness deep inside her, which began to ache. - Author: Iain Pears

#15. I went to the meeting with some trepidation for, although I might have met a wizard before, I had never encountered an Irishman. - Author: Iain Pears

#16. Every cataclysm is welcomed by somebody; there is always someone to rejoice at disaster and see in it the prospect of a new beginning and a better world. - Author: Iain Pears

#17. When an experiment was to begin, all women were excluded for fear their irrational natures would influence the result, and an air of fervent concentration descended. - Author: Iain Pears

#18. Civilization depends on continually making the effort, of never giving in. It needs to be cared for by men of goodwill, protected from the dark. - Author: Iain Pears

#19. The devil himself can become beauty, so we are told, to corrupt mankind.
(Marco) - Author: Iain Pears

#20. He (William Cort) had some desire to be successful, but it did not burn so strongly in him that he was prepared to overcome his character to achieve it. - Author: Iain Pears

#21. I did not like Ravenscliff by instinct, but I was beginning to find him fascinating. A book-reading, socialist-sympathising, child-begetting capitalist fraud. - Author: Iain Pears

#22. Who you are is less important than what you seem. - Author: Iain Pears

#23. And here was the moment. The end of it all, for civilization was merely another name for friendship, and friendship was coming to an end. - Author: Iain Pears

#24. Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely. - Author: Iain Pears

#25. The world was full of such madmen in those days. Imprisonment is not the way to deal with such people; half measures merely feed their pride. Leave 'em alone or hang 'em, in my opinion. Or better still, pack them off to the Americas, and let them starve. - Author: Iain Pears

#26. He who profits by villainy, has perpetrated it. - Author: Iain Pears

#27. Like the aristocracy, you can tell a reporter's status by his clothes and manners. The worse they are, the higher up they are, - Author: Iain Pears

#28. Virtue comes through contemplation of the divine, and the exercise of philosophy. But it also comes through public service. The one is incomplete without the other. Power without wisdom is tyranny; wisdom without power is pointless. - Author: Iain Pears

#29. God forbid that I should ever suffer the shame of publishing a book for money, or of having one of my family so demean themselves. How can one tell who might read it? No worthy book has ever been written for gain, I think; - Author: Iain Pears

#30. And a more foolish notion can scarcely be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything. - Author: Iain Pears

#31. The simple fact that something has not been done, is no proof that it cannot be. - Author: Iain Pears

#32. We are the civilized world, you and I. A few dozen people, with our learning. As long as we continue to stroll through my garden arm in arm, civilization will continue. - Author: Iain Pears

#33. For what are we but our past? If that is lost, we become nothing. - Author: Iain Pears

#34. Stick to journalism, Mr Cort, where you never have to understand anything. - Author: Iain Pears

#35. It was, for the time being, an empty threat, and he must have sensed it also, for he laughed easily and with contempt. You will do what your masters tell you to do, doctor. As do we all. - Author: Iain Pears

#36. Besides, it was all very well to criticise the works of others, but in fact it was quite hard, he discovered, to tell a story. - Author: Iain Pears

#37. although individuals and small events did affect the course of historical development, the influence of even major figures was strictly limited. In - Author: Iain Pears

#38. The evil done by men of goodwill is the worst of all ... We have done terrible things, for the best of reasons, and that makes it worse. - Author: Iain Pears

#39. Shame, I do believe, is the most powerful emotion known to man; most discoveries and journeys of importance have been accomplished because of the ignominy that would be the result if the attempt was abandoned. - Author: Iain Pears

#40. Philosophy cannot be extinguished, though men will try ... The spirit seeks the light, that is its nature. It wishes to return to its origin, and must forever try to reach enlightenment. - Author: Iain Pears