Iain M. Banks, Inversions Quotes

One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher.

[M]y determined and strenuous endeavours to take in absolutely nothing of what I had regarded as entirely the most irrelevant part of my schooling had patently not met with total success

Patience can be a means of letting matters mature to a proper state for action, not just a way of letting time slip away.