|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 21, 2014 7:30:40 GMT 10
Do unto others, then run
Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect
The odds against there being a bomb on a plane are a million to one, and against two bombs a million times a million to one. Next time you fly, cut the odds and take a bomb
Those hot pants of hers were so damned tight, I could hardly breathe
When God made man, she was only joking
That's what show business is, sincere insincerity
Live each day as if it were your last, because one day, you'll be right!Benny HillEnglish comedian and actor (Born this day 1924) His name was Ernie, and he drove the fastest milkcart in the west
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 21, 2014 7:32:43 GMT 10
Nonviolent action is a means of combat, as is war. It involves the matching of forces and the waging of 'battle,' requires wise strategy and tactics and demands of its 'soldiers' courage, discipline and sacrifice. This view of nonviolent action as a technique of active combat is diametrically opposed to the popular assumption that, at its strongest, nonvio- lent action relies on rational persuasion of the opponent, and more commonly it consists simply of passive submission. Nonviolent action is just what it says: action which is nonviolent, not inaction. This technique consists, not simply of words, but of active protest, noncooperation, and intervention. Overwhelmingly, it is a group or mass action
The “grass roots” institutions of society, and even local and state or provincial governments, are increasingly subordinated to centralized administration. Powerful multinational corporations are taking control of the national economies outside of the countries themselves, and are using that control to manipulate governments in order to serve their own financial interests. All these conditions are inimical to freedom
We have also failed to distinguish between popular elections to choose the per- sonnel or party to occupy the position of ruler and the condition in which people possess the opportunity for active participation in the political society. As a result, major attention has been focused on periodic elections. However, little or no atten- tion has been given to the need for diffused power among various social groups and institutions, nor to strengthening the capacity of the people to make important decisions for themselves and to maintain effective control over the ruler’s power
Often the ability of the subjects to help to select their ruler, and to influence the political policies and practices of a ruler who is willing to be influenced, will be confused with the ability actually to control the exercise of power by a ruler who is determined to proceed without restrictions. That confusion is likely to create the illusion of greater democratic control than is in fact the case. This illusion may make it easier for the ruler to extend his control and power, while the subjects become more complacent and less interested in asserting control themselves and less willing to resist. This confusion may also help to create the impression that there is greater difference between rivals for the position of ruler than is in fact the case. Tocqueville’s insight is still valid: “Our con- temporaries are therefore much less divided than is commonly supposed; they are constantly disputing as to the hands in which the supremacy is to be vested, but they readily agree upon the duties and the rights of that supremacy”
Some foreign states will act against a dictatorship only to gain their own economic, political, or military control over the country
The fall of one regime does not bring in a utopia. Rather, it opens the way for hard work and long efforts to build more just social, economic, and political relationships and the eradication of other forms of injustices and oppression
The foreign states may become actively involved for positive purposes only if and when the internal resistance movement has already begun shaking the dictatorship, having thereby focused international attention on the brutal nature of the regimeGene SharpUS academic and political scientist (Born this day 1928) If hierarchical systems exist in part because the subordinates submit as a result of seeing themselves as inferiors, the problem of how to change and end the hierarchical system becomes twofold: first, to get the members of the sub- ordinate group to see themselves as full human beings, not inferiors to anyone, and second, to get them to behave in ways consistent with that enhanced view of themselves, i.e. to resist and defy the patterns of inferiority and subordination
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 21, 2014 7:33:33 GMT 10
It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one
A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile
Discretion is not the better part of biography
It is not [the biographer's] business to be complimentary; it is his business to lay bare the facts of the case, as he understands them... dispassionately, impartially, and without ulterior motives
Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which is independent of any temporal process — which is eternal, and must be felt for its own sake
The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian – ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art
The old interests of aristocracy — the romance of action, the exalted passions of chivalry and war — faded into the background, and their place was taken by the refined and intimate pursuits of peace and civilizationGiles Lytton StracheyBritish writer and critic (Died this day 1932) If this is dying, then I don't think much of it(said on his deathbed)
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 21, 2014 7:34:19 GMT 10
The difficulty in life is the choice
Terrible is the day when each sees his soul naked, stripped of all veil; that dear soul which he cannot change or discard, and which is so irreparably his
My soul, so far as I understand it, has very kindly taken colour and form from the many various modes of life that self-will and an impetuous temperament have forced me to indulge in. Therefore I may say that I am free from original qualities, defects, tastes, etc. What is mine I have acquired, or, to speak more exactly, chance bestowed, and still bestows, upon me. I came into the world apparently with a nature like a smooth sheet of wax, bearing no impress, but capable of receiving any; of being moulded into all shapes
The mind petrifies if a circle be drawn around it, and it can hardly be denied that dogma draws a circle round the mind
I am filled with pride when I think of the noble and exalted world that must have existed before Christian doctrine caused men to look upon women with suspicion and bade them to think of angels instead
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it
After all there is but one race — humanityGeorge MooreIrish novelist, short story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist (Died this day 1933) Self is man's main business; all outside of Self is uncertain, all comes from self, all returns to Self
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 21, 2014 7:35:08 GMT 10
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear
Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness
Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it
At age 50, every man has the face he deserves*George Orwell, aka E.A. BlairEnglish author ( Animal Farm, 1984) (Died this day 1950, aged 46,*didn't make it to 50) All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 21, 2014 7:35:57 GMT 10
There can be no liberty without the law
It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law
Man has made 32 million laws since the Commandments were handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai ... but he has never improved on God's law
Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication
What I have crossed out I didn't like. What I haven't crossed out I'm dissatisfied with
Remember you're a star. Never go across the alley even to dump garbage unless you are dressed to the teeth
The greatest art in the world is the art of storytellingBro. Cecil B. de MilleAmerican film director producer ( The Ten Commandments) (Died this day 1959) Creativity is a drug I cannot live without
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 22, 2014 6:13:32 GMT 10
Quotes for the Day:1 of 2:No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested
Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds
If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mindFrancis BaconEnglish statesman ( Knights of the Helmet) and essayist ( Novum Organum) (Born this da 1561) The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 22, 2014 6:15:06 GMT 10
2 of 2:By far the best proof is experience
He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties
I have taken all knowledge to be my provinceFrancis Bacon(Born this day 1561) Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est(= "Knowledge is power")
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 22, 2014 6:15:58 GMT 10
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes
For me the greatest beauty always lies in the greatest clarity
He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose
They make glorious shipwreck who are lost in seeking worlds
Would that we could at once paint with the eyes! In the long way from the eye through the arm to the pencil, how much is lost!
It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes the worth of a man
Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his foreverBro. Gotthold Ephraim LessingGerman critic and dramatist (Born this day 1729) Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy
|
|
|
Post by Tamrin on Jan 22, 2014 6:16:52 GMT 10
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song
There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned
It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe — you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who can- not, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves
Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life
Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire — in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?Bro. Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)English romantic poet ( Don Juan) (Born this day 1788) We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive
|
|