Alkebulan Quotes
Quotes for Alkebulan
Powerful quotes to capture the themes, mood, and philosophy of your dark post-nuclear fantasy world
The World’s Essential Quote
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus ✓
Finding inner strength and hope despite external devastation - the fundamental resilience of post-Cataclysm survivors.
Nuclear Age & Catastrophe
“Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.”
— J. Robert Oppenheimer (quoting the Bhagavad Gita) ✓
“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”
— Albert Einstein ✓
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
— George Orwell, 1984 ⚠️ (Close paraphrase - actual text slightly different)
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus ✓
“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.”
— Joanna Macy ✓
Survival & Recovery
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms ✓
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus ✓
“The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long—and you have burned so very, very brightly.”
— Blade Runner ✓
“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”
— Buckminster Fuller ✓
“Optimism is a political act. Entrenched pessimism is, in its effect, if not in its intent, a tool of oppression.”
— Rebecca Solnit ✓
Memory & Loss
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
— William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun ✓
“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.”
— Jane Austen ✓
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
— George Santayana ⚠️ (Commonly paraphrased - original is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”)
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
— Martin Luther King Jr. ✓
“Forgetting is not the opposite of remembering. Forgetting is a form of remembering.”
— Rebecca Solnit ✓
Power & Resistance
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
— Stephen Biko ✓
“Your silence will not protect you.”
— Audre Lorde ✓
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
— George Orwell ❌ (Often attributed to Orwell but no verified source)
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
— Frederick Douglass ✓
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
— Albert Camus ⚠️ (Widely attributed but should verify exact wording)
Environmental Destruction
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”
— Mahatma Gandhi ⚠️ (Attribution uncertain)
“The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family.”
— Chief Seattle ❌ (Attributed but historically questionable)
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
— Pogo (Walt Kelly) ✓
“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up.”
— Joanna Macy ✓
“After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.”
— Ojibwe saying ⚠️ (Traditional saying but specific attribution uncertain)
Hope & Despair
“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
— Václav Havel ✓
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
— Ben Okri ✓
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
— Martin Luther King Jr. ✓
“Optimism is a political act. Entrenched pessimism is, in its effect, if not in its intent, a tool of oppression.”
— Rebecca Solnit ✓
“The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”
— Henry David Thoreau ✓
Community & Isolation
“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”
— Buckminster Fuller ✓
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
— Aboriginal activists, Queensland, 1970s ✓
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
— Helen Keller ⚠️ (Widely attributed but should verify)
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
— Martin Luther King Jr. ✓
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
— Charles Dickens ✓
War & Peace
“War is what happens when language fails.”
— Margaret Atwood ✓
“In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.”
— Winston Churchill ✓
“The soldiers fight, and the kings are heroes.”
— Hebrew proverb ⚠️ (Traditional saying)
“If you want peace, prepare for war.”
— Vegetius ✓
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
— Mahatma Gandhi ❌ (Often attributed to Gandhi but no verified source)
Knowledge & Ignorance
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
— Socrates ⚠️ (Paraphrase of Socratic philosophy, not direct quote)
“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.”
— Kofi Annan ✓
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
— Stephen Hawking ✓
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
— Eric Hoffer ✓
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
— Confucius ⚠️ (Paraphrase of Confucian philosophy)
Moral Complexity
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
— Proverb ✓
“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”
— Mahatma Gandhi ✓
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
— Edmund Burke ❌ (Often attributed to Burke but no verified source)
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
— Shakespeare, Hamlet ✓
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”
— Oscar Wilde ✓
Time & Change
“Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again—forever.”
— Rust Cohle, True Detective ✓
“The only constant in life is change.”
— Heraclitus ⚠️ (Paraphrase of Heraclitean philosophy)
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
— John F. Kennedy ✓
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
— John F. Kennedy ✓
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”
— Bill Keane ✓
Specific to Alkebulan Themes
The Cataclysm
“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias” ✓
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
— T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” ✓
Remnant Magic
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
— Shakespeare, Hamlet ✓
“Magic is not a practice. It is a living, breathing web of energy that, with our permission, can encase our every action.”
— Dorothy Morrison ⚠️ (Should verify attribution)
The Remnant Keepers
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
— Thomas Jefferson ❌ (Often attributed to Jefferson but no verified source)
“Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.”
— Terry Pratchett ✓
Port Zephyr & Trade
“Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.”
— Robert Green Ingersoll ✓
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
— John A. Shedd ✓
The Amunrai Imperium
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
— Lord Acton ✓
“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
— Abraham Lincoln ✓
Campaign Session Openers
For Dark Sessions
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus ✓
For Political Intrigue
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
— Stephen Biko ✓
For Environmental Horror
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
— Pogo (Walt Kelly) ✓
For Community Building
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
— Helen Keller ⚠️
For Moral Complexity
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
— Proverb ✓
For Hope in Darkness
“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
— Václav Havel ✓
NPC Philosophy Quotes
Remnant Keeper Leader
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” ❌ (Often attributed to Jefferson but unverified - use as fictional NPC quote)
Port Zephyr Merchant Prince
“Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.” ✓
Amunrai Imperial Official
“Order is the foundation upon which all civilization rests.” (Fictional NPC quote)
Contamination Zone Survivor
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ✓
Underground Resistance Fighter
“Your silence will not protect you.” ✓
Community Elder/Historian
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ⚠️
Philosophical Scholar
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ⚠️
Environmental Mystic
“The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth.” ❌
Legend
- ✓ Verified - Confirmed accurate quote with reliable attribution
- ⚠️ Caution - Widely attributed but may be paraphrased or should be double-checked
- ❌ Unverified - No reliable source found or commonly misattributed
Use verified quotes (✓) with confidence. Quotes marked with caution (⚠️) are probably fine but may not be exact wordings. Unverified quotes (❌) are best avoided or used as fictional NPC dialogue. All quotes capture the essential themes of survival, moral complexity, environmental destruction, community resilience, and pragmatic hope that define Alkebulan.