Ian M. Banks

Things mean pretty much what we want them to mean.

Perhaps it is different for humans, dear prince," she said, sounding sad, "but we have found that the underdisciplined child will bump up against life eventually and learn their lesson that way - albeit all the harder for their parents' earlier lack of courage and concern. The overdisciplined child lives all its life in a self-made cage, or bursts from it so wild and profligate with untutored energy they harm all about them, and always themselves. We prefer to underdiscipline, reckoning it better in the long drift, though it may seem harsher at the time.""To do nothing is always easy." Ferbin did not try to keep the bitterness out of his voice."To do nothing when you are so tempted to do something and entirely have the means to do so, is harder. It grows easier only when you know you do nothing for the active betterment of others.

Those who are most sincere are also the most morally suspect, as well as being incapable of producing or appreciating wit.

The ship told you the guilty systems recognizes no innocents. I'd say it does. It recognizes the innocence... only to violate it.