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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:10:55 GMT 10
A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol
If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure
It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others
To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge
It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children
If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other directionDietrich BonhoefferGerman theologist (Confessing Church) (Born this day 1906) Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:11:37 GMT 10
Each person must live their life as a model for others
Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it
At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in
I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear
Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome
I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people
Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in othersSister Rosa Lee ParksUS civil rights activist (bus protester) (OES, Alabama, PHA — Born this day 1913) Why do you all push us around?
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:12:17 GMT 10
The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions of American women alive
The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know her- self as a person, is by creative work of her own. There is no other way
It is ridiculous to tell girls to be quiet when they enter a new field, or an old one, so the men will not notice they are there. A girl should not expect special privileges, because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination
A woman is handicapped by her sex, and handicaps society, either by slavishly copying the pattern of man's advance in the professions, or by refusing to compete with man at all
The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question: ''Is this all?''
Men weren't really the enemy — they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded mas- culine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill
If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were basedBetty FriedanUS feminist and author ( The Feminine Mystique) (Born this day 1921) No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:13:19 GMT 10
Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts
We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world
We are on an irreversible trend towards more freedom and democracy, but that could change
It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it
I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future
One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared'
I made a misstatement and I stand by all my misstatementsDan QuayleUS politician, 44 th Vice President (Born this day 1947) I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:14:37 GMT 10
I felt the gateway open
In the face of real danger Elak forgot the gods and drew his rapier. Prayers, he had found, would not halt a dagger's blow or a strangler's hands
Elak got up and recovered his rapier, loudly thanking Ishtar for his deliverance. “For," he thought, "a little politeness costs nothing, and even though my own skill and not Ishtar's hand saved me, one never knows." Too, there were other dangers to face, and if the gods are capricious, the goddesses are certainly even more so
We are all part of some cosmic pattern, and this pattern works toward good and not evil. It builds and does not destroy. So I shall go on in my search for a race where I can find kinship and happiness
I have drawn strength from the stars, and the cosmic sources beyond the universe. You know nothing of my power
The stars glittered frostily overhead, unconcerned with the fate of Atlantis — stars that would be shining thousands of years hence when Atlantis was not even a memory
I never understood the ultimate answer. That was beyond meHenry KuttnerAmerican science fiction author (Died this day 1958) When I die, I want to die in a Utopia that I have helped to build
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:16:18 GMT 10
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt
We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. Ideas of the Stone Age exist side by side with the latest scientific thought. Only a fraction of mankind has emerged from the Dark Ages, and in the most lucid brains, as Logan Pearsall Smith has said, we come upon nests of woolly caterpillars. Seemingly sane men entrust their wealth to stargazers and their health to witch doctors. Giant planes throb through the stratosphere, but half their passengers are wearing magic amulets and are protected from harm by voodoo incantations. Hotels boast of express elevators and a telephone in every room, but omit thirteen from all floor and room numbers lest their guests be ill at ease
There is no necessary connection between the desire to lead and the ability to lead, and even less the ability to lead somewhere that will be to the advantage of the led
Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues… A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they only marshal us in the way that we are going
College professor — someone who talks in other people's sleep
That is the essence of a witch-hunt, that any questioning of the evidence or the procedures in itself constitutes proof of complicity
Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdomBergen EvansUS lexicographer, academic & television host (Died this day 1978) (second from right) The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:18:09 GMT 10
The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination
When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic
The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change
It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried
The facts are always friendly, every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true
There is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfilment of its inherent possibilities
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can changeCarl RogersAmerican psychologist (humanistic approach) (Died this day 1987) Don't be the ammunition wagon, be the rifle ... knowledge exists primarily for use
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 4, 2014 10:18:49 GMT 10
The justice I have received, I shall give back
For neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not
Our actions and responsibilities are our own; what later returns to either haunt or applaud us is neither possible to predict nor always completely understandable
Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing
There was something demoniacal and insuperable about typographical errors, as if they were part of the natural evil that permeated man's existence, as if they had a life of their own and were determined to manifest themselves no matter what, as surely as weeds in the best-tended gardens
Honesty, for me, is usually the worst policy imaginable
How easy it was to lie when one had to lie!Patricia HighsmithAmerican novelist and short story writer (Died this day 1995) My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 5, 2014 11:25:20 GMT 10
Wednesday’s Quotes:As set forth by theologians, the idea of 'God' is an argument that assumes its own conclusions, and proves nothing
The god of the Christians, as we have seen, is the god who makes promises only to break them; who sends them pestilence and disease in order to heal them; a god who demoralizes mankind in order to improve it
They make revolutionary propaganda because they know the privileged class can never be overturned peacefully
It is the lash of hunger which compels the poor man to submit. In order to live he must sell — 'voluntarily' sell — himself every day and hour to the 'beast of property'
We need do no more than repeat: only under communism does the individual become himself and lead his own life
The aims of anarchists and true communists are identical
Anarchists are socialists because they want the improvement of society, and they are communists because they are convinced that such a transformation of society can only result from the establishment of a commonwealth of propertyJohann MostGerman-American anarchist and orator (Born this day 1846) Is anarchism desirable? Well, who does not seek freedom? What man, unless willing to declare himself in bondage, would care to call any control agreeable? Think about it!
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 5, 2014 11:26:13 GMT 10
The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem
Christianity has not conquered nationalism; the opposite has been the case nationalism has made Christianity its footstool
Universalism as an ideal is as old as, nay, is probably much more ancient than the Christian ideal
Whichever theory we adopt to give a rational explanation of human existence, that theory must take into account and explain the mental nature we see at work in all modern communities
There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature's scheme of evolution
It is just because civilization is ever evolving, changing, and becoming more complicated, that experts find it so difficult to define it in explicit terms
Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to under- stand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?Arthur KeithScottish anatomist and anthropologist ( A New Theory of Human Evolution) (Born this day 1866) I am a rank individualist
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