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Post by Tamrin on Dec 19, 2013 6:20:25 GMT 10
Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a gun
The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man ... not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology
Excluded by my birth and tastes from the social order, I was not aware of its diversity. I wondered at its perfect coherence, which rejected me
Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a for- bidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating: they can breathe it
Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man
The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them
A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darknessJean GenetFrench novelist ( Our Lady of the Flowers, The Thief's Journal) (Born this day 1910) To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 19, 2013 6:21:12 GMT 10
All I've done all my life is disobey
Don't care what people say. Don't give a damn about their laws
If I weren't burning myself out, do you think I'd be able to sing?
I think you have to pay for love with bitter tears
I'd like to see one person — just one — who would own up to having been a coward
Money? How did I lose it? I never did lose it. I just never knew where it went
I don't want to die an old ladyEdith Piaf (Little Sparrow), French singer (Born this day 1915) Death is the beginning of something
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 19, 2013 6:22:32 GMT 10
A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit
One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies
I know you're set for fighting, but what are you fighting for?
It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality. That's religion. That's art. That's life
I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief
The fortunes of the entire world may well ride on the ability of young Americans to face the responsibilities of an old America gone mad
You must protest it is your diamond duty... Ah, but in such an ugly times the true protest is beautyPhil OchsAmerican protest singer ( I Ain't Marching Anymore) (Born this day 1940) Call it peace or call it treason, Call it love or call it reason, But I ain't marching anymore!
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 19, 2013 6:24:54 GMT 10
An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances
One should not forget that there are very few surviving items from this period, often just single, small bones, a tooth, a sliver of the skull. Categorizing these pieces can be very difficult
As we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal
Our self-awareness impresses itself on us so cogently, as individuals and as a species, that we cannot imagine ourselves out of existence, even though for hundreds of millions of years humans played no part in the flow of life on the planet
Our inability to imagine a world without Homo sapiens has a profound impact on our view of ourselves; it becomes seductively easy to imagine that our evolution was inevitable. And inevitability gives meaning to life, because there is a deep security in believing that the way things are is the way they were meant to be
Eighty-five percent of recorded species live in the terrestrial realm, and the majority of these, some 850,000, are arthropods (that is, insects, spiders, and crustaceans). Most of the arthro- pod species are insects, and almost half of these are beetles, a fact that is said to have inspired a famous epigram from the British biologist J.B.S. Haldane. On being asked, one day, by some clerical gentlemen what his study of the natural world had revealed to him about God. Haldane is said to have replied that it indicated that He had "an inordinate fondness of beetles"
I simply would not accede to being forced into this, and would frequently be kept out of classes because of irreverent comments and mocking this religious stuff. Frankly, it stayed with me to this day. In fact, don't get me going. I'm almost as bad as Richard Dawkins on this issueRichard LeakeyKenyan politician, paleoanthropologist and conservationist (Born this day 1944) If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it’s solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive, then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 19, 2013 6:26:22 GMT 10
Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens
It's no wonder we don't defend the land where we live. We don't live here. We live in television programs and movies and books and with celebrities and in heaven and by rules and laws and abstractions created by people far away and we live anywhere and everywhere except in our particular bodies on this particular land at this particular moment in these particular circumstances
One of the fables we live by is that someday the killing will stop. If only we rid ourselves of Chinese, white men will have jobs and white women will have virtue, and then we can stop killing. If only we rid ourselves of Indians, we will fulfill our Manifest Destiny, and then we can stop killing. If only we rid ourselves of Canaanites, we will live in the Promised Land, and then we can stop killing. If only we rid ourselves of Jews, we can build and maintain a Thousand Year Reich, and then we can stop killing. If only we stop the Soviet Union, we can stop the killing (remember the Peace Dividend that never materi- alized?). If only we can take out the worldwide terrorist network of bin Laden and others like him. If only. But the killing never stops. Always a new enemy to be hated is found
What if the point of life has nothing to do with the creation of an ever-expanding region of control? What if the point is not to keep at bay all those people, beings, objects and emotions that we so needlessly fear? What if the point instead is to let go of that control? What if the point of life, the primary reason for existence, is to lie naked with your lover in a shady grove of trees? What if the point is to taste each other's sweat and feel the del- icate pressure of finger on chest, thigh on thigh, lip on cheek? What if the point is to stop, then, in your slow movements together, and listen to the birdsong, to watch the dragonflies hover, to look at your lover's face, then up at the undersides of leaves moving together in the breeze? What if the point is to invite these others into your movement, to bring trees, wind, grass, dragonflies into your family and in so doing abandon any attempt to control them? What if the point all along has been to get along, to relate, to experience things on their own terms? What if the point is to feel joy when joyous, love when loving, anger when angry, thoughtful when full of thought? What if the point from the beginning has been to simply be?
To pretend that civilization can exist without destroying its own land base and the landbases and cultures of others is to be entirely ignorant of history, biology, thermodynamics, morality, and self-preservation
I have heard people suggest that because humans are natural that everything humans do or create is natural. Chainsaws are natural. Nuclear bombs are natural. Our economics is natural. Sex slavery is natural. Asphalt is natural. Cars are natural. Polluted water is natural. A devastated world is natural. A devasted phyche is natural. Unbridled exploitation is natural. Pure objectification is natural. This is, of course, non- sense. We are embedded in the natural world. We evolved as social creatures in this natural world. We require clean water to drink, or we die. We require clean air to breathe, or we die. We require food, or we die. We require love, affection, social contact in order to become our full selves. It is part of our evolutionary legacy as social creatures. Any- thing that helps us to understand all of this is natural: Any ritual, artifact, process, action is natural, to the degree that it reinforces our understanding of our embeddedness in the nat- ural world, and any ritual, artifact, process, action is unnatural, to the degree that it does not
For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilitiesDerrick Jensen, American author and activist (Born this day 1960) Yes, it's vital to make lifestyle choices to mitigate damage caused by being a member of industrialized civilization, but to assign primary responsibility to oneself, and to focus primarily on making oneself better, is an immense copout, an abrogation of responsibility
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 19, 2013 6:28:35 GMT 10
Magic speaks to the child in all of us. No matter how sophisticated we become, there's still a part of us who wants to believe in an alternative reality, where we can defy the laws of nature
I like to say magic is the world's second oldest profession, a mystical and often awe- inspiring spectacle that, throughout the ages, has blended superstition, trickery and religion
I came up with the term 'mindfreak' because I didn't like the word 'magician.' I felt like I wanted to coin a term that would be basically the reaction to my art
A lot of the demonstrations that I do, when I get inside people's minds, is under- standing human behavior and understanding how people think and getting their patterns down so I know how to create the illusion that I get inside their brain
I have mentally overcome situations most of you would be terrified to ever attempt: heights, fire, needles, spiders, snakes, angry monkeys, being shot, being hit by a car, going blind — you name it, I have been in a situation where I have had to mentally overcome my inherent fears to do my job
Houdini connected to people on an emotional level so that when he would escape that straight jacket it wasn't about the straight jacket. It was about people look- ing at it and escaping poverty. When you have that it's the truest form of magic
When the mind, body, and spirit work together I believe anything is possibleCriss AngelAmerican magician and mindfreak (Born this day 1967) If we all looked out for each other a little bit more, I think we wouldn't have a lot of the crisis that we have in today's society
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 20, 2013 6:48:43 GMT 10
Friday’s Quotes:Thy clothes are all the soul thou hast
That soul that can be honest is the only perfect man
Speak boldly, and speak truly, shame the devil
Man is his own star, and the soul that can render an honest and a perfect man commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early, or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, our fatal shadows that walk by us still
Corruption is a tree, whose branches are of an immeasurable length: they spread ev'rywhere; and the dew that drops from thence hath infected some chairs and stools of authority
That place that does contain my books, the best companions, is to me a glorious court, where hourly I converse with the old sages and philosophers; And some- times, for variety, I confer with kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels
Let's meet and either do or dieJohn FletcherEnglish playwright ( The Knight of Malta) (Baptized this day 1579) Deeds, not words
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 20, 2013 6:51:12 GMT 10
Men are divided in opinion as to the facts. And even granting the facts, they explain them in different ways
I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space
Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows — only hard and with luminous edges — and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe": but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things
I am indeed, in a certain sense a Circle ... and a more perfect Circle than any in Flatland; but to speak more accurately, I am many Circles in one
Even a Sphere — which is my proper name in my own country — if he manifest himself at all to an inhabitant of Flatland — must needs manifest himself as a Circle
Distress not yourself if you cannot at first understand the deeper mysteries of Spaceland. By degrees they will dawn upon you
Shall we stay our upward course? In that blessed region of Four Dimen- sions, shall we linger on the threshold of the Fifth, and not enter therein?
Edwin Abbott Abbott English schoolmaster and theologian (Flatland) (Born this day 1838)
As you yourself, superior to all Flatland forms, combine many Circles in One, so doubtless there is One above you who combines many Spheres in One Supreme Existence, surpassing even the Solids of Spaceland
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 20, 2013 6:55:46 GMT 10
It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness
Never take any notice of Anonymous letters, unless you get a few thousand on the same subject
A man may be a tough, concentrated, successful money-maker and never contribute to his country anything more than a horrible example. A manager may be tough and practical, squeezing out, while the going is good, the last ounce of profit and dividend, and may leave behind him an exhausted industry and a legacy of industrial hatred. A tough manager may never look outside his own factory walls or be conscious of his partnership in a wider world. I often wonder what strange cud such men sit chewing when their working days are over, and the accumulating riches of the mind have eluded them
Men of genius are not to be analyzed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech
Experiment is necessary in establishing an academy, but certain principles must apply to this business of art as to any other business which affects the artistic tic sense of the community. Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language
Salary-earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on. These are, in the political and economic sense, the middle class. They are for the most part unorganised and unself-conscious. They are envied by those whose benefits are largely obtained by taxing them. They are not rich enough to have individual power. They are taken for granted by each political party in turn. They are not sufficiently lacking in individualism to be organised for what in these days we call "pressure politics." And yet, as I have said, they are the backbone of the nation
Indeed, there is much more in slavery in Australia than most people imagine. How many hundreds of thousands of us are slaves to greed, to fear, to newspapers, to public opinion — represented by the accumulated views of our neighbours!Bro. Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, KT, AK, CH, FAA, FRS, KCiconic “Liberal”, longest-serving Australian PM (1939-1941 & 1949-1966) (Born this day 1894) In all my life I have treated the press with marked contempt and remarkable success
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Post by Tamrin on Dec 20, 2013 7:00:03 GMT 10
If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions
Probably the profoundest difference between human and animal needs is made by one piece of human awareness, one fact that is not present to animals, because it is never learned in any direct experience: that is our foreknowledge of death ... Only a creature that can think symbolically about life can conceive of its own death. Our knowledge of death is part of our knowledge of life
A signal is comprehended if it serves to make us notice the object or situation it bespeaks. A symbol is understood when we conceive the idea it presents
Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the impli- cations and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know
Science builds its structure of hypothetical "elements" and laws of their behavior, touching on reality at crucial points … But the historian does not locate known facts in a hypothetical, general pattern of processes; his aim is to link fact to fact, one unique knowable event to another individual one that begot it
Tragedy dramatizes human life as potentiality and fulfillment. Its virtual future, or Destiny, is therefore quite different from that created in comedy. Comic Destiny is Fortune — what the world will bring, and the man will take or miss, encounter or escape; tragic Destiny is what the man brings, and the world will demand of him. That is his Fate
Most new discoveries are suddenly seen things that were always thereSusanne LangerAmerican philosopher of art ( Philosophy in a New Key) (Born this day 1895) Art is the objectification of feeling and the subjectification of nature
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