Books that impacted your worldview?

[LogDog75]

111. Two books on the opposite spectrum

Foundation series by Issac Asimov. There are two specific items I'll reference. The first is the sign Hari Sheldon had behind his desk that read "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." I'm reminded of this every time I get really mad, which is rare, and I used it to find a peaceful solution.

The second is when one of his characters is on a different planet and he remark to the effect that every place has their own, particular odor. I remembered this when I was stationed in South Korea and some of my fellow American remarks about how smelly the shopping district was. When I mentioned every place has their own odor, including their hometown that realization was an eye opener for them.

The second book is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Jean Valjean should be mad at the world but an act of kindness from a Bishop changed his life. He led his life as a good, decent man and when he had the opportunity to take advantage of a situation to benefit himself, he choose the right thing to do. Also, Victor Hugo exposed the ugly side of life in 19th century France when women and children are abandoned and/or mistreated while those with wealth and/or power rule over everyone. The preface to the novel says:

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.