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Post by Tamrin on Feb 10, 2014 7:48:48 GMT 10
Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us
That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it
What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup
What you don't understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels
I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrified himself
As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth
I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to themBoris L PasternakRussian novelist and poet ( Dr Zhivago, Nobel 1958) (Born this day 1890) Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, the powers of darkness, will in time, be crushed by the spirit of light
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 10, 2014 7:50:59 GMT 10
I hate music, especially when it's played
Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did
Be awful nice to 'em goin' up, because you're gonna meet 'em all comin' down
Why can't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone
If anybody ever puts a price on your head — take it!
Me and my big mouth !! I'd get rid of it, only it's such a handy place to keep my teeths
All of us have schnozzles … if not in our faces, then in our character, minds or habits. When we admit our schnozzles, instead of defending them, we begin to laugh, and the world laughs with usJimmy DuranteItalian-American singer, pianist, comedian and actor (Born this day 1893) Good-night Mrs Calabash, wherever you are
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 10, 2014 7:51:44 GMT 10
Everyone needs help from everyone
The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren't always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom
It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk
You don't need to pray to God any more when there are storms in the sky, but you do have to be insured
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are
Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life
Don't tell me peace has broken outBertolt BrechtGerman playwright ( Mother Courage) and composer (Born this day 1898) Grub first, then ethics
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 10, 2014 7:52:38 GMT 10
Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in
The real cause of hunger is the powerlessness of the poor to gain access to the resources they need to feed themselves
No society has fulfilled its democratic promise if people go hungry... If some go without food they have surely been deprived of all power. The existence of hunger belies the existence of democracy
Recent breakthroughs in science show we have just the capacities we need to face our planet's challenges. We're "soft-wired" for cooperation, empathy, fairness, along with a deep need to "make a dent," as social philosopher Erich Fromm put it. My hunch is that one reason depression is a global pandemic is that the dominant mental map denies so many of us expression of these deep needs and capacities
We can all reprogram our brain's responses by putting ourselves into new, initially uncomfortable situations. We'll learn fear might not mean 'stop'; I've come to believe fear usually means 'go'
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully
I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we areFrances Moore LappéUS social and environmental activist, and author ( Diet for a Small Planet) (Born this day 1944) Hope is not what we find in evidence, it's what we become in action
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 10, 2014 7:54:29 GMT 10
You have to deal with the fact that your life is your life
Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you
In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future
Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children
Racism is taught in our society ... it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics
When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth
Find the good — and praise itAlex HaleyUS writer ( Autobiography of Malcolm X, Roots) (Died this day 1992) Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 11, 2014 8:48:29 GMT 10
Tuesday’s Quotes:Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have
I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake
The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things
When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable
One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another
When writing about transcendental issues, be transcendentally clearRené DescartesFrench-born Dutch philosopher, “Father of Modern Philosophy” (Died this day 1650) Cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”)
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 11, 2014 8:49:14 GMT 10
But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later
Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. Divine Providence has a mission for her children to fulfill; though a mission unrecognized by political economists. There is ever a moral balance preserved in the universe, like the vibrations of the pendulum. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism
There was a time when all these things would have passed me by, like the flitting figures of a theatre, sufficient for the amusement of an hour But now, I have lost the power of looking merely on the surface. Everything seems to me to come from the Infinite, to be filled with the Infinite, to be tending toward the Infinite. Do I see crowds of men hastening to extinguish a fire? I see not merely uncouth garbs, and fantastic, flickering lights, of lurid hue, like a trampling troop of gnomes — but straightway my mind is filled with thoughts about mutual helpful- ness, human sympathy, the common bond of brotherhood, and the mysteriously deep foundations on which society rests; or rather, on which it now reels and totters
That man's best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature's infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontan- eous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds
We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate
You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy
I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after she had written a bookLydia ChildAmerican author and slavery abolition activist (Born this day 1802) I will work in my own way, according to the light that is in me
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 11, 2014 8:49:58 GMT 10
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything
Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration
I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off
Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work
To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother's keeper and not his oppressor is very beautifulThomas Alva Edison, American inventor (Born this day 1847) I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 11, 2014 8:50:44 GMT 10
If one knows only what one is told, one does not know enough to be able to arrive at a well-balanced decision
If you want to succeed in the world, you don't have to be much cleverer than other people. You just have to be one day earlier
A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify
When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask themselves only whether it is true. When a politician says something, his colleagues must first of all ask, 'Why does he say it?'
I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius
Those individuals who give moral considerations a much greater weight than con- siderations of expediency represent a comparatively small minority, five percent of the people perhaps. But, In spite of their numerical inferiority, they play a major role in our society because theirs is the voice of the conscience of society
The people who have sufficient passion for the truth to give the truth a chance to prevail, if it runs counter to their bias, are in a minority. How important is this "minority?" It is difficult to say at this point, for, at the present time their influence on governmental decisions is not perceptibleLeo SzilardHungarian physicist (chain-reaction) (Born this day 1898) Don't lie if you don't have to
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 11, 2014 8:53:33 GMT 10
The more language is a living operation, the less we are aware of it. Thus it follows that from the forgetfulness of language that its real being consists in what is said in it. What is said in it constitutes the common world in which we live. … The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it — what is said
Aristotle established the classical definition of man, according to which man is the liv- ing being who has logos. In the tradition of the West, this definition became canonical in a form which stated that man is the animal rationale, the rational being, distinguished from all other animals by his capacity for thought. Thus it rendered the Greek word logos as reason or thought. In truth, however, the primary meaning of this word is lan- guage ... The word logos means not only thought and language, but also concept and law
It was clear to me that the forms of consciousness of our inherited and acquired historical education — aesthetic consciousness and historical consciousness — presented alienated forms of our true historical being
What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now. The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he finds himself
We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let some- thing be said. It would be an inadmissible abstraction to contend that we must first have achieved a contemporaneousness with the author or the original reader by means of a recon- struction of his historical horizon before we could begin to grasp the meaning of what is said. A kind of anticipation of meaning guides the effort to understand from the very beginning
Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it
It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in traditionHans-Georg GadamerGerman philosopher ( Truth and Method) (Born this day 1900) In fact history does not belong to us but rather we to it. Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self- evident way in the family, society, and state in which we live. The focus of subject- ivity is a distorting mirror. The self-awareness of the Individual is only a flickering in the closed circuit of historical life. That is why the prejudices of an individual are — much more than that individual's judgments — the historical reality of his being [/color][/center]
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