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Devoted

Book by Dean Koontz · 4 quotes · Dean Koontz, Quotes About Dogs, Absurd

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Devoted Quotes

“As technology races onward and with it enlightened thinking, as hidebound society is reshaped and outdated mores are consigned to the dustbin of history, as thrilling new social norms replace the old, as previous virtues come to be seen as mere weaknesses and raw power is rightly understood to be the sole remaining virtue, much will need to be burned. Shredded and burned, torn down and hammered into dust. A shining future cannot be built on a past of ignorance and error. To build a brighter tomorrow, it’s necessary to descend into a place darker than darkness, to clean the corrupt world with blood and destruction. By the time he reaches the end of the hall, he is convinced that Megan’s paintings prove she is not woke to the better world that can be, will be. Shacket will wake her to it.”

“Nature was a green battlefield where the weak were forever preyed on by the strong. Nature did not care, nor did the earth, which for all its beauty was nonetheless a hard place, indifferent to its creatures. It was mind that mattered, mind that cared, mind that loved, the best works of the mind that changed this hard world for the better. Mind—and the heart—had bonded people and dogs for tens of thousands of years. They had formed an alliance for survival and a covenant of affection against the darkness of the world.”

“Progress was real progress only when it evolved naturally and thoughtfully from the history of human experience and accumulated wisdom. When it was imposed in contempt for that experience and wisdom, then progress was in fact radical destruction. ...Carson began to understand that what he sought was an escape from the hubris of humanity, from the endless discontent of those who believed in one utopia or another in spite of the fact that history showed utopian thinking to lead inevitably to disaster and often to mass murder on an industrial scale. But of course there could be no escape from the overweening pride and arrogance of the species. You could withdraw, remake your life with a small circle of friends who didn’t wish to silence and punish their fellow countrymen with whom they disagreed, who knew the grievous threat to peace that arose from contempt for others, from an inflated self-esteem that became vainglory. But there was no town remote enough, no fortress walls high enough to protect you from mad ideas with mass appeal.”

“Two species on this planet had been bonded for many thousands of years. Maybe more than a hundred thousand. Dogs and people. Dogs had been at the side of human beings for millennia before horses or cats. They had hunted together when hunting had been essential for survival. They had protected each other from all threats in a primitive world where nature was even crueler than it was now. Of all the creatures on Earth, only people and dogs engaged joyfully in play all the days of their lives. In the relationship between humanity and dogs, some mutual destiny existed that had not yet been fulfilled.”