Orson Scott Card Quotes on Duty
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...Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me - to find out what you're good for.
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I went back through some of the tapes. I can't help it. I like the kid. I think we're going to screw him up. Of course we are. It's our job. We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive.
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We have to go. I'm almost happy here.
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He was a solider, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have known what they meant.
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I wanted to hurry because I have a work to do there, and every day here is marking time, and because it hurts me every time I see you and [he] growing closer and you and me growing more distant, even though I know it's exactly as it should be, so when I decided to go, I thought that going quickly was better, and I was right; you know I'm right. I never thought you'd hate me for it I don't hate you, I love you, you're part of myself, you're my heart and when you go it's my heart torn out and carried away
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I believed in my own heart that it was necessary. But I also hated him. Will I ever be sure that I didn't do it because of that hatred, that longing for vengeance? I fear that I will always suspect that I am an assassin in my heart.
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I don't know you, ma'am, and apparently I'm expected to die for you
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He was not happy. And, if Ivan was any judge of character, neither was Katerina. Relieved, yes, she seemed to be relieved. As if one great hurdle had been passed. But Ivan knew that this was nothing to her but a marriage for reasons of the state. She had grown up knowing such a thing would be needed. He had not. He always expected to marry for love, or at least by his own choice. He had hoped for a bride who would be proud to say the vows with him. This was dismal indeed, to know that she was merely doing her duty to king and country, to god and daddy
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That was the most terrible thing that a woman could to a decent man: look vulnerable and ask him for mercy. If he refused her he'd be denying all his instincts as a provider and protector
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This is what love is, he thought. Doing what you don't want to do, because she needs it so much. And it isn't that bad. And it isn't that hard
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Individual people always sacrifice for the sake of the community. When it matters enough, people sometimes even die, willingly, for the good of the community that they feel themselves to be a part of. As well as a thousand sacrifices short of death. And why? Why do we give up out individual desires, leave them unfulfilled, or work hard at tasks we hate or fear because others need us to do them?
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Ansset watched, keeping his promise but wishing with all his heart that somewhere in his mind there was a wall he could hide behind. Unfortunately, he was too sane.
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She wants to die, Aaron. Please try to constrain her so she doesn't take the rest of us with her' I don't want to die! I wasn't to live in freedom, like any of you!
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I thought you said you liked this kid. 'If the buggers get him, they'll make me look like his favorite uncle.' 'All right. We're saving the world, after all. Take him.'
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Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it.