The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how small differences in perspective can dramatically influence history and understanding.
In this quote, Terry Pratchett suggests that the nature of the first individual to perceive the divine voice of Om, a shepherd rather than a goatherd, could have altered the course of history. He emphasizes the contrasting characteristics of sheep and goats as a metaphor for different forms of leadership and intelligence, hinting that individual perspectives can shape larger narratives and societal development.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about how different leadership styles affect our societies.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
Anger and hatred are the real enemies that we must confront and defeat, not the 'enemies' who appear from time to time in our lives.
Truth quenches untruth, love quenches anger, self-suffering quenches violence. This eternal rule is a rule not for saints only but for all.
We boast of our freedom, and we have your example for it. We talk the language we have always heard you speak.
Study what thou art Whereof thou art a part What thou knowest of this art This is really what thou art. All that is without thee also is within.
The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body
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