"We each have within ourselves the ability to shape our own destinies. That much we understand. But, more important, each of us has an equal ability to shape the destiny of the universe. Ah, that you find more difficult to believe. But I tell you it is so. You do not have to be elven king or human monarch or the head of a dwarven clan to have a significant impact on the world around you.
In the vastness of the ocean, is any drop of water greater than another? No, you answer, and neither has a single drop the ability to cause a tidal wave.
but, I argue, if a single drop falls into the ocean, it creates ripples. And these ripples spread. And perhaps - who knows - these ripples may grow and swell and eventually break foaming upon the shores.
Like a drop in the vast ocean, each of us causes ripples as we move through our lives. The effects of whatever we do - insignificant as it may seem - spread out beyond us. We may never know what far-reaching impact even the simplest action might have on our fellow mortals. Thus we need to be conscious, all of the time, of our place in the ocean, of our place in the world, of our place among our fellow creatures.
For if enough of us join forces, we can swell the tide of events - for good or for evil."
M. Weis - T. Hickman "The seventh gate"
"We are rich, Raven, richer than we could ever hoped to be. we have woven a saga - tale that will warm men's hearts on cold nights for many years to come." He looked at me then, his blue eyes boring into mine like ship's rivets. "Is it enough?" he asked.
And now I did not answer, for i did not need to. I looked at the warrior ring on my arm, the silver ring Sigurd had given me so long ago when i had proved myself in a hard fight. Then I looked out to sea, watching a fat trading vessel wallowing on the merest ripple of wave, her crew bellowing at each other like cattle. And I smiled, lips pulling back from my teeth.
It is never enough.
G. Kristian "Odin's Wolves"
When Marco Polo came at last to Cathay, seven hundred years ago, did he not feel - and did his heart not falted as he realized - that this great and splendid capital of an empire had had its being all the years of his life and far longer, and that he had been ignorant of it? That it was in need of nothing from him, from Venice, from Europe? That it was full of wonders beyond his understanding? That his arrival was a matter of no importance whatever? We know that he felt these things, and so has many a traveller in foreign parts who did not know what he was going to find. There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvellous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.
R. Adams "Watership Down"
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