Yang Wenli — memorable quote from Legend of the Galactic Heroes

“There certainly are things that cannot be told in words, but that can only be said by people who have exhausted their use of words. Words are like icebergs that are floating on the ocean called "heart". The parts that show above the sea surface are small, but they still let us perceive the larger parts that are hidden below the water. Use words deliberately. If you do, you'll be able to convey more things more accurately than if you were to keep silent. Right judgement can only be made with right information and right analyses.”

“Every society places the world in order, by the concept of opposites: inside and outside, religious and secular, celestial and worldly. The opposing concepts organize the world as it is today, but none of those can be distinctly separated. There is always a grey area where it is ambiguous.”

“Justice isn’t something that you can just proclaim. It’s a feeling you should keep near your heart.”

“If a member of one’s family is killed by a thief, then one should hate the thief. But people will miss aim their hatred — why should they go to where the thief hides? If one loses a family member to sickness, then one should hate the disease. It is not the doctor’s fault; yet people will hate the doctor.”

“Some questions with no answers cannot be answered even by those who live forever. Yet, the absence of a correct answer does not mean the question cannot be answered. If you want to know how I felt about the complete ban on some culture and art that I could not understand, was not interested in, or could not accept, in the name of preventing the violations of others’ rights or other trumped up charges, I believe that would be taking us onto the road of discriminating against others. If we define culture as that which is healthy or humane, and defend that decision in the name of justice, once any part of that system collapses, it will cause an unimaginable number of problems for society. For instance, if I drew a line in the middle and erased one side, the next day, a new line will appear in the middle of the side that is left. I think suppressing the instincts and thoughts of the human spirit is bad. The desire for purity and wholesomeness, when taken to an extreme, is harmful.”