There is almost no subject that Terry Pratchett has n’t explicate better , funnier , and more prison term than just about anyone else on the planet . read his Discworld novels is read a master at work , and it seems like he gets more relevant the more time lead . Here are 10 of his most relevant passages to keep in judgment throughout the next four years .
1 ) Commander Vimes did n’t care the phrase “ The innocent have nothing to reverence , ” believing the innocent had everything to fear , mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like “ The free have nothing to fear . ” – Snuff
Pratchett deconstruct this tilt several times . Obviously in Snuff , but he also fetch it up in Men at Arms ( “ The maxim ‘ Honest man have nothing to fear from the police ’ is currently under review by the Axioms Appeal Board . ” ) and in Unseen Academicals ( “ It was all very well for the Watch to say ‘ the innocent have nothing to fear ’ , but what was that all about ? Who cared about the devoid and their problems when the Watch was on its way ? ” ) . citizenry always jog this out when people protest spread out police power , especially in the realm of surveillance . Vimes ’ ( and Pratchett ’s ) tip is that people who say you have nothing to revere will eventually give you a reasonableness to be afraid .
2 ) She was already learning that if you neglect the ruler people will , half the metre , restfully rewrite them so that they do n’t apply to you . – Equal Rites
Put this in giant missive on a poster and slap it up on your rampart . It is vitally important to call back that this chance and to watch for it . Pratchett meant it to be a good thing for a reference whose beingness break a number of spoken and unspoken rules , but the other side of it is an factual trouble .
3 ) And , while it was regarded as pretty serious evidence of criminality to be live in a slum , for some grounds owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions . – Feet of Lucius Clay
Pratchett explores this topic , a spate , too — that for some reason big crimes not only go unpunished , they somehow lead to celebrity and luck . He has another one about how having slavers and brigands for ancestors makes you elite , but anyone doing it now is a criminal .
4 ) Shoot the authoritarian and prevent the state of war ? But the dictator is merely the lead of the whole festering boiling point of societal pus from which dictators emerge ; blast one , and there ’ll be another one along in a minute . Shoot him too ? Why not shoot everyone and infest Poland ? In fifty years ’ , thirty old age ’ , ten years ’ time the cosmos will be very closely back on its old course . account always has a bang-up weight of inertia . – Lords and Ladies
For anyone who has ever advocate getting free of the one individual they think is the problem : it ’s systemic . It ’s historic . And there is so much more than getting rid of one or two or three people to charge .
5 ) fearfulness is a foreign territory . chiefly it grows obedience like Indian corn , which grows in rows and gain weeding tardily . But sometimes it spring up the potatoes of rebelliousness , which flourish underground . – Small god
Here ’s a somewhat uplift one that has the welfare of a ) being true and b ) exhibit , again , just how adept Pratchett was with word .
6 ) There are , it has been said , two types of people in the world . There are those who , when presented with a drinking glass that is on the dot half full , say : this glass is half full . And then there are those who say : this Methedrine is half empty .
The creation belongs , however , to those who can reckon at the looking glass and say : ‘ What ’s up with this glass ? Excuse me ? Excuse me ? This is my glass ? I do n’t think so . My glass was full ! And it was a large drinking glass ! And at the other end of the bar the Earth is full of the other character of someone , who has a rugged glass , or a glass that has been carefully knocked over ( usually by one of the people calling for a with child crank ) , or who had no chalk at all , because they were at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman ’s center . – The Truth
The existence belong to the entitle , who somehow not only avoid blame , but avoid being let in in the proverbs .
7 ) “ The enigma is not to daydream , ” she whispered . “ The secret is to awaken up . Waking up is hard . I have woken up and I am substantial . I have sex where I come from and I know where I ’m go . you could not fool me any longer . Or touch me . Or anything that is mine . ” – Tiffany Aching , The Wee Free Men
Pratchett followed this by saying that you ca n’t be “ alert ” all the time , that we daydream because see everything as it really is would break us . And that explicate why citizenry complain when their “ escape ” touches on truths .
- I consider in freedom , Mr. Lipwig . Not many the great unwashed do , although they will , of course of instruction , dissent otherwise . And no hard-nosed definition of exemption would be complete without the exemption to take the result . Indeed , it is the freedom upon which all the others are based . – Vetinari , Going Postal
Every single time someone bitches about exemption of words when the great unwashed knock them for what they ’ve suppose , remind them of this .
9 ) It was so much easy to pick it on Them . It was bleakly uncheerful to think that They were Us . If it was Them , then nothing was anyone ’s fault . If it was Us , what did that make Me ? After all , I ’m one of Us . I must be . I ’ve surely never thought of myself as one of Them . No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them . We ’re always one of Us . It ’s Them that do the unsound things . – Jingo
A wad of Pratchett ’s books , particularly the later Discworld ones , explore xenophobia and racism . Jingo , about a brewing conflict with “ foreigners ” feel more relevant now than ever . Pratchett always does more than just show us how , he always ensure to get into people ’s heads and explain .
10 ) “ All right , ” said Susan . “ I ’m not stunned . You ’re say humans need … phantasy to make life bearable . ”
REALLY ? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL ? NO . man want FANTASY TO BE HUMAN . TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE .
“ Tooth fairies ? Hogfathers ? Little — ”
YES . AS PRACTICE . YOU HAVE TO START OUT learn TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES .
“ So we can believe the big unity ? ”
YES . JUSTICE . MERCY . DUTY . THAT SORT OF affair .
“ They ’re not the same at all ! ”
YOU THINK SO ? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND comminute IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE , ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY . AND YET — Death waved a hand . AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD , AS IF THERE IS SOME … SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED .
“ Yes , but people have got to believe that , or what ’s the dot — ”
MY peak EXACTLY . – Susan and Death , The Hogfather
There is no exchange in all of Discworld that deposit with me more than this one . Pratchett was an atheist , and yet this is the most eloquent defending team of faith in the unquantifiable I have ever come across . What is the point of anything if there are n’t greater principle to believe in and fight back for ? I figure I ’d cease this with the most inspiring quote I could think of .
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