“In the jungle the strong slay the weak until only the strong remain,” said Tanub. “And then the strong prey upon each other?” asked Orne. “That is a quibble for women,” said Tanub. “It’s too bad you feel that way,” said Orne. “When two cultures meet like this they tend to help each other.”

Frank Herbert, Missing Link

Consider also:

  1. “man’s fear to live in the infinite luxury of life is the prime root of his misery.”
  2. Modern Magick
  3. He looked at me. “I don’t know what she might have told you, miss, but—” “My name’s Sarah Jane,” I told him. “Sarah Jane Dillard.” He sighed. “But the first thing should have been not to share your name with any stranger you might happen to meet in the woods.” “He’s right about that,” Aunt Lillian said. “I’ve heard so much about you,” I said. “I didn’t think you were a stranger.” “No, he’s a stranger, all right,” Aunt Lillian corrected me. “That’s what you call folks you never see.”
  4. “Nostalgia can be contained and marketed—but actual difference would threaten the hegemony of the one worldview. The ‘Gift Economy’ of some nearly-extinguished ‘primitive tribe’ makes excellent TV; our mourning for its disappearance can only boost the sales of whatever commodity might soothe our sense of loss. Mourning itself can become fetishized, as in the victorian era of onyx and jet and black-plumed graveyard horses. Death is good for Capital, because money is the sexuality of the dead. Corpses have already appeared in advertising—’real’ corpses.”
  5. “a system of ethics founded on a reasoned argument from the known facts of life to what must surely follow, if the universal laws we see in operation in the world about us shall continue to hold good also in the Kingdom of the Mind.”