The Five Orders

The Knights Hospitaller, though respected as both a fighting force and a humanitarian organization, were not except from political interference and assertions of power. In 1811, the King of Prussia suppressed the German tongue of of the Knights, forming the Royal Prussian Order of St. John in its stead. Former members of the German tongue in the Netherlands formed their own Order there in 1852, and former members in Sweden did the same in 1920.

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I am the judge of dreams, and you are the judge of love. Well, I find you guilty of dreaming good dreams and sentence you to a lifetime of working and suffering for the sake of your dreams. I only hope that someday you won't declare me innocent of the crime of loving you.

- Joao Figueira "Pipo" Alvarez

from Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead

I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought. Giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think, and they still love me, and I've concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score is me.

- Adam Savage

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

- Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four

There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn, nonetheless, for the latter.

- Academician Prokhor Zakahrov, Address to the Faculty

(Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)