Quotes worth quoting: The Wikiquote project

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What Came Before

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« on: April 19, 2013, 01:54:22 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
Looking for people to help immortalize some of Bakker's more interesting quotes from each book, so I am making this and similar topics for each book. There is the site, called wikiquotes, that is essentially for quoting your author, so Truth Shines' idea was that we could compile a large list of quotes and make a pretty epic page for Bakker.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._Scott_Bakker

en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Second_Apocalypse

If you'd like to see any quotes added, post them here and me or someone else will hopefully get around to putting them up on the wiki. Also, if possible, provide the page number, who said it, and the edition (including country).

What Came Before

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« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2013, 01:54:55 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
"Things holy ... became mere versions of things unholy ... as though the words "holy" and "unholy" were as easily exchanged as seats at a gaming table. And the recent simply became a more tawdry repetition of the ancient."
Drusas Achamian, Page 39 (USA Paperback edition)

"Achamian had crisscrossed the Three Seas, had seen many of those things that had once made his stomach flutter with supernatural dread, and he knew now that childhood stories were always better"
Drusas Achamian, Page 39 (USA Paperback edition)

"Avarice, it seemed to him, was the world's only dimension."
Drusas Achamian, Page 39 (USA Paperback edition)

"There was nothing the ignorant prized more than the ignorance of others ."
Drusas Achamian, Page 43 (USA Paperback edition)

"Above all the mighty detest change"
Drusas Achamian, Page 57 (USA Paperback edition)

"Answers are like opium: the more you imbibe, the more you need. Which is why the sober man finds solace in mystery."
Ikurei Conphas, Page 190 (USA Paperback edition)

"War is intellect"
Ikurei Conphas, Page 190 (USA Paperback edition)

"Some events mark us so deeply that they find more force of presence in their aftermath than in their occurrence."
Cnaiur, Page 191 (USA Paperback edition)

" 'But measure' the slave replies 'is not something accomplished and then forgotten, Skiotha. Old measure is merely grounds for the new. Measure is unceasing."
'The Slave', Page 192 (USA Paperback edition)

"Complicity makes unforgettable, carves scenes with unbearable clarity, as though the extent of condemnation is to be found in the precision of detail."
Cnaiur, Page 192 (USA Paperback edition)

"With his own feet, the dead chased him."
Cnaiur, Page 193 (USA Paperback edition)

"The young can never see life for what it is: a knife's edge, as thing as the breaths that measure it. What gives it depth isn't memory. I've memories enough for ten men, and yet my days are as thin and as shadowy as the greased linen the poor stretch over their windows. No, what gives life depth is the future. Without a future, without a horizon of promise or threat, our lives have no meaning. Only the future is real"
Skeaos, Page 240 (USA Paperback edition)

"He wondered whether the old drab had taken Skeaos as a lover. Likely, he concluded, and winced at the accompanying image. Like a prune fucking a twig, he thought"
Ikurei Conphas, Page 240 (USA Paperback edition)

"There was something curiously pathetic, he thought, about the notion of the man plotting with his grandmother, like two beggars sneering at those too poor to give more than coppers."
Ikurei Conphas, Page 241 (USA Paperback edition)

"Stupid men, Conphas had found, tended to be excessively proud of their few brilliant moments."
Ikurei Conphas, Page 246 (USA Paperback edition)

"In desperate times, Cnaiur knew, men rationed nothing so jealously as tolerance, They were more strict in their interpretations of custom and less forgiving of uncommon things"
Cnaiur, Page 369 (USA Paperback edition)

What Came Before

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« Reply #2 on: April 19, 2013, 01:55:28 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: chapter eight
For an instant, Conphas felt like a thief, the hidden author of a great loss. And the exhilaration he felt almost possessed a sexual intensity. He saw clearly now why he so loved this species of war. On the field of battle, his every act was open to the scrutiny of others. Here, however, he stood outside scrutiny, enacted destiny from a place that transcended judgment or recrimination. He lay hidden in the womb of events.

Like a God.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 252). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Quote from: chapter nine
Often, in his soul's eye, she was inexplicably thin and wild, buffeted by rain and winds, obscured by the swaying of forest branches. This woman, who had once lifted her hand to the sun, holding it so that for him its light lay cupped in her palm, and telling him that truth was air, was sky, and could only be claimed, never touched by the limbs and fingers of a man. He couldn't tell her how profoundly her musings affected him, that they thrashed like living things in the wells of his soul and gathered stones about them.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 266). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

The latter might be one of my favorite pieces of writing of RSB's

What Came Before

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« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2013, 01:55:42 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
*gasp* a reply!

those are good, I'll put them up later this week, though could you add who is talking or the POV?

Also, the RSB "Person Page" is 'finished'. Or at least I'm more or less done with it. If anyone would like to make it prettier, would like to add anything, or would like to change the sample quotes, please feel free.

What Came Before

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« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2013, 01:55:51 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
Conphas and Achamian, respectively.

What Came Before

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« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2013, 01:56:08 pm »
Quote from: lockesnow
The ruins were far too old to contradict the forest outright. They had been submerged, worn and unbalanced by ages of its weight. Sheltered in mossy hollows, walls breached earthen mounds, only to suddenly end, as though restrained by vines that wrapped them like great veins over bone.
- AK
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 8). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

“Weeping may muddy the face... but it does cleanse the heart.”
- Leweth
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 15). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Smoky dreams. Dreams drawn from the sheath.
- DA
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 46). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Ink might be immortal, but meaning was not.
- DA
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 51). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

“Zealots holding out redemption in one hand to draw attention away from the whip in the other. Sooner or later, everyone sees the whip.”
- DA
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 57). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

Faith may die, but her sentiments remain eternal.
- DA
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 58). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

He held the word in his mouth, as though it were a morsel of questionable food.
- DA
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Darkness that Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing) (p. 63). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

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« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2013, 01:56:19 pm »
Quote from: Wilshire
lots of quotes about time. very nice.
love the last one.

it seems that the wikiquote people dont much like my formatting... which i thought i copied from another page pretty exactly but whatever.

tekne

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« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2013, 03:30:51 pm »
"It is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing."
give your vision, how  you do comprehend this statement !please!
we are having trouble in interpreting  it to other language...
The dark currents I find - An accurate copy, A blueprint of the pleasure In me

...best things in life come without tension, driven by a higher flow ,that one and only is the reason and truth behind their sole existance

Wilshire

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« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2013, 04:22:31 pm »
There are others here that are more versed in language then myself, but I'll give it a try anyway. It will probably be more confusing after I'm done  :P

I think this sentence is mostly just a play on words so that it would sound cool when read (in english) and reflect the title
Break it into its two parts

1) It is only after that we understand what has come before
2) Then we understand nothing


First part:
"What has come before" is just a phrase used to describe the past. So it means the same thing as:

"It is only after that we understand the past"
This sentence basically states that you can only fully understand the past after it has happened.

That is saying that while you can predict probable outcomes very accurately, you can never be 100% sure what will happen until after it has happened. The general idea is that nothing is certain with 100% probability. After all, the probability that you will win the lottery is essentially 0, and yet people do still win.

The second part:
"Then we understand nothing"

This can be taken with the first half to generally say that there are times that something occurs that is unpredictable or unlikely. There was no way to forecast that an unlikely event would take place before it happened.



You could then re-write the old sentence to say something like this:

"The future cannot be predicted with absolute certainly, it is only upon reflecting on the past that events can truly be predicted (up until the present). But, since you are only reading history rather than predicting it, you are forecasting nothing, and thus you understand nothing."

I doubt this will be much help but I tried   :)
One of the other conditions of possibility.

Madness

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« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2013, 09:11:04 pm »
Wilshire did a decent job.

The actual quotation is "if," by the way.

If it is only after (something has occurred) that we understand what has come before (, that is, what actually happened when it actually occurred), then we (can) understand nothing (in the moment when things are actually happening).
The Existential Scream
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tekne

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« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2013, 09:32:48 pm »
 Spasibo(thank you guys),  btw ,Madness,  that "if" thing has helped a lot ))
The dark currents I find - An accurate copy, A blueprint of the pleasure In me

...best things in life come without tension, driven by a higher flow ,that one and only is the reason and truth behind their sole existance

Madness

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« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2013, 09:37:25 pm »
No worries, tekne :).
The Existential Scream
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tekne

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« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2013, 09:50:21 pm »
..in connection with the next statement 'Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything'  (hope no little smth is missing here):)
we shall comprehend it ,so that if something that happened was understood before or simultaneously , then it was possible to accomplish by means of "soul vision" (like 'buddhi' of Patanjali darshana)only;  -thus we can define the soul as follows: that which "pre-sees" everything
The dark currents I find - An accurate copy, A blueprint of the pleasure In me

...best things in life come without tension, driven by a higher flow ,that one and only is the reason and truth behind their sole existance

Madness

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« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2013, 11:06:29 pm »
I like the thoughts, tekne.

I don't know the similarities between our interpretations but I'm of the opinion that Bakker is riffing (toying with) the arguments of Socrates from Plato's Phaedo.

All souls exist someplace (the same place) before and after life so that they may keep returning to bodily form. Socrates further argues that all knowledge is actually recollection of things we knew in this after/before lifepool. Finally, that you can escape to this after/before lifepool forever, if only you live one virtuous enough life (which is where things get otherwise complicated because how do we know what the Gods actually want of us...)
The Existential Scream
Weaponizing the Warrior Pose - Declare War Inwardly
carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
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tekne

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« Reply #14 on: October 01, 2013, 01:57:36 am »
thank you! for the excursus(for I am less in western philosophy myself than the ancient india's) but I am pretty sure those similariies  in doctrines are not coincidental..not many have heard of such symbiote to ever exist  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
The dark currents I find - An accurate copy, A blueprint of the pleasure In me

...best things in life come without tension, driven by a higher flow ,that one and only is the reason and truth behind their sole existance