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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:33:49 GMT 10
Monday’s Quotes:I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot
There is no bigotry like that of “free thought” run to seed
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character
The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it
The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages
Always rise from the table with an appetite, and you will never sit down without one
Apathy is a sort of living oblivionHorace GreeleyUS newspaper editor, political reformer (Born this day 1811) Go west, young man
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:34:29 GMT 10
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people
The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be
Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economistWalter BagehotEnglish economist and sociologist (Born this day 1826) We must not let daylight in upon the magic
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:35:04 GMT 10
Be there a will, and wisdom finds a way
Feed the musician, and he's out of tune
Habit with him was all the test of truth, “It must be right: I've done it from my youth”
And took for truth the test of ridicule
A great lie is like a great fish on dry land; it may fret and fling and make a frightful bother, but it cannot hurt you. You have only to keep still, and it will die of itself
What is a church? — Our honest sexton tells, “'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells”
The game is never lost till wonGeorge CrabbeBritish naturalist and writer ( The Village, The Borough) (Died this day 1832) The cold charities of man to man
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:35:46 GMT 10
Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it
Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything
But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?'
The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just ... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not under- standing and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand
The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it
I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich
We are always the same age insideGertrude SteinUS writer and public intellectual ( The Making of Americans) (Born this day 1874) There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:36:33 GMT 10
David, the world is not an evil place. Never believe that. You will see wars and famines and betrayals. But the world itself cannot be evil. It’s just that evil people, having nothing kind within themselves to feed upon, are driven like mad animals to accomplish- ment. So you’ll always find that one evil person makes more noise than four good men
I never found a way to tell a good man from an evil one except by what he did. It’s popular now to say all men are good and evil both. But I don’t believe that. Men are on one side or the other. Of course, sometimes a good man will do an evil thing. But he regrets it. And so will you, whenever you do wrong. And if you do wrong too often, regrets come so easily that you forget what wrong is. Then you’ve become an evil man, and you’re all tied up inside, and you work and fight against others. And do you know why? Because you have no peace in your heart to satisfy you when you are alone
For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see itJames A MichenerAmerican Pulitzer Prize winning author ( Tales of the South Pacific) (Born this day 1907) I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to under- stand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson — the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:37:06 GMT 10
A mind enclosed in language is in prison
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell
A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached
Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings
Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty
To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defileSimone WeilFrench philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist (Born this day 1909) I can, therefore I am
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 3, 2014 10:37:49 GMT 10
If you want to make enemies, try to change something
A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt
By 'radical,' I understand one who goes too far; by 'conservative,' one who does not go far enough; by 'reactionary,' one who won't go at all
There can be no equality of opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with
Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles
That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic
The seed of revolution is repressionWoodrow Wilson28th US President (1913-21) (Died this day 1924) I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:07:54 GMT 10
Tuesday’s Quotes:At the pre-emptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the past nine years and ten months of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these U.S.
We do hereby command the Leaders of the Hebrew, Catholic and Protestant Churches to sanctify and have us crowned Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico
The Supreme Court of the United States is hereby commanded to try Andrew Johnson for usurpation of our Imperial authority and prerogatives, and if found guilty, behead him or send him here to black the Emperor's boots
We, Norton I, do hereby decree that the offices of President, Vice President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives are, from and after this date, abolished
We further decree that the Senate of the United States elect a prominent Democrat as their presiding officer, to act as President until the next election, and to reconstruct the Cabinet according to our wishes hereafter to be declared
To Mr. Seward: It is my desire that, in case Maximillian will surrender, he be sent here a prisoner of war, but that in the event of his continuing the war, or refusing to surrender, then he be shot
Now, therefore, the Directors of the company are hereby ordered to see that precautions are taken to make travel on said railroad perfectly safe by using a screw with at least twenty-four inches diameterH.I.M. Bro. Norton I (Joshua Norton)"Emperor of the USA & Protector of Mexico” (Born this day 1819) "I've met a lot of kings, and emperors and heads of state in my time, Joshua. I've met them all. And you know something? I think I liked you best" Neil Gaiman
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:08:36 GMT 10
Love is so simple
Some people have the time but they don't have time while others have time but do not have the time
When truth is no longer free, freedom is no longer real: the truths of the police are the truths of today
When wizards make terrible mistakes, one always accuse the trainee
Our Father which art in heaven — Stay there — And we will stay on earth — Which is sometimes so pretty
An orange on the table, your dress on the rug, and you in my bed, sweet present of the present, cool of night, warmth of my life
We should try to be happy, just to set an exampleJacques Prévert, French poet and lyricist (Born this day 1900) Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:10:17 GMT 10
Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future
I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many — myself and humanity in flux. I extend a multiple of ways in experience in space. I am myself now, lying on my back in the jungle grass, passing through the ether between satellites and stars. My aging body transmits an ageless life stream. Molecular and atomic replacement change life's composition. Mol- ecules take part in structure and in training, countless trillions of them. After my death, the mol ecules of my being will return to the earth and sky. They came from the stars. I am of the stars
I know myself as mortal, but this raises the question: "What is I?" Am I an individual, or am I an evolving life stream composed of countless selves? … As one identity, I was born in AD 1902. But as AD twentieth-century man, I am billions of years old. The life I consider as myself has existed though past eons with unbroken continuity. Individuals are custodians of the life stream — temporal manifestations of far greater being, forming from and returning to their essence like so many dreams
If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. That judgment, in turn, must rest upon one’s out- look on life. Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed
Why should we look for his errors when a brave man dies? Unless we can learn from his experience, there is no need to look for weakness. Rather, we should admire the courage and spirit in his life. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die?
I have not heard a word of respect or compassion spoken of our enemy since I came here. It is not the willingness to kill on the part of our soldiers which most concerns me. That is an inherent part of war. It is our lack of respect for even the admirable characteristics of our enemy — for courage, for suffering, for death, for his willing- ness to die for his beliefs, for his companies and squadrons which go forth, one after another, to annihilation against our superior training and equipment. What is courage for us is fanaticism for him. We hold his examples of atrocity screamingly to the heavens while we cover up our own and condone them as just retribution for his acts
There may be a series of wars, one after another, going on indefinitely. Possibly the world will come to its senses sooner than I expect. But, as I have often said, the environment of human life has changed more rapidly and more extensively in recent years than it has ever changed before. When environment changes, there must be a corresponding change in life. That change must be so great that it is not likely to be completed in a decade or in a generationCharles LindberghAmerican aviator and writer (Born this day 1902) Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance
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