Hello and Welcome. This page is a collection of 18 quotes from The Dark Forest book by Cixin Liu that I liked and saved while reading this book. I hope you will like these quotes too.
By the way, I am Deepak Kundu, an avid book reader, quotes collector and blogger.
Quotes on Time
- The only constant in a world of tremendous change is the swift passage of time.
- Time is the one thing that can’t be stopped. Like a sharp blade, it silently cuts through hard and soft, constantly advancing. Nothing is capable of jolting it even the slightest bit, but it changes everything.
Quotes on Travel
- It’s not important where we go. I think it’s a wonderful feeling just being on a journey.
- No, no. Don’t say where we are! Once we know where we are, then the world becomes as narrow as a map. When we don’t know, the world feels unlimited.
Other Quotes
- It’s a wonder to be alive. If you don’t understand that, how can you search for anything deeper?
- Life needed smoothness, but it also needed direction. One could not always be returning to the point of origin.
- Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.
- Sixty, like sixteen, was the best time in life, an age where the burdens of one’s forties and fifties had been laid down, but the slowdown and illness of the seventies and eighties had not yet arrived. An age to enjoy life.
- Real shrewdness means not letting any shrewdness show. It’s not like in the movies. The truly astute don’t sit in the shadows all day striking a pose. They don’t show off that they’re using their brains. They look all carefree and innocent. Some of them are tacky and mawkish, others careless and unserious. What’s critical is not to let others think you’re a person of interest. Let them look down on you or dismiss you and they won’t feel you’re an obstacle. You’re just a broom in the corner. The pinnacle of this is to make them not notice you at all, as if you don’t exist until the moment right before they die at your hands.
- When you’ve thought of everything you should, and done everything you need to, then let whatever happens happen. There’s nothing more anyone can do, you know? Don’t psych yourselves out.
- Prison is like a criminal training course. Forget about reform when you go in, just don’t get mixed up with the other prisoners. And learn how to protect yourself a little.
- People who are sensitive to beauty are good by nature, and if they’re not good, then they can’t appreciate beauty.
- You see, hatred is a treasure more precious than gold or diamonds, and a weapon keener than any in the world.
- The eyes of ordinary people were the best reflection of the level of civilization in a time and place.
- There are no permanent enemies or comrades, only permanent duty.
- Staying alive is not enough to guarantee survival. Development is the best way to ensure survival.
- The past was like a handful of sand you thought you were squeezing tightly, but which had already run out through the cracks between your fingers.
- Exponentials are the devils of mathematics.