Words&Dirt

“Within the web of Confucian relations, intimate friendships take on a transformative force that can only be adequately explained by understanding them as an extension and amplification of the family itself.  As a dimension of a Confucian family-centered ethic, friendship serves as a definite, sometimes compensatory source of meaning and value.  While immediate family relations are usually a matter of birth and blood, developed friendships are contingent, and entail diversity and deliberate choice.  We might describe the role of friendship as a doorway through which erstwhile outsiders enter to join and add a remarkable depth to the ranks of family relations.”

––Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary, by Roger T. Ames, pg. 114

“‘This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe, and those we never think to question.'”

––Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, pg. 236