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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:35:59 GMT 10
Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal
I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality
I am the only person still alive of that rescuing group but I want everyone to know that, while I was coordinating our efforts, we were about twenty to twenty five people. I did not do it alone
Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes. Indeed, that term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little
We sometimes had to leave those unfortunate families without taking their children from them. I’d go back there the next day and often found that everyone had been taken… to the death camps
Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory
Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its specter still hangs over the world and doesn’t allow us to forgetIrena SendlerPolish social worker and WWII underground resistance activist (Born this day 1910) I still carry the marks on my body of what those "German supermen" did to me then
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:37:43 GMT 10
An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one
The world still consists of two clearly divided groups: the English and the foreigners. One group consists of less than 50 million people; the other of 3,950 million. The latter group does not really count
Continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles
On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners
You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals
Jokes are better than war. Even the most aggressive jokes are better than the least aggressive wars. Even the longest jokes are better than the shortest wars
Television is of great educational value. It teaches you while still young how to (a) kill, (b) rob, (c) embezzle, (d) shoot, (e) poison, and, generally speaking, (f) how to grow up into a Wild West outlaw or gangster by the time you leave schoolGeorge MikesHungarian-born British author (Born this day 1912) Many Continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a game
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:38:37 GMT 10
I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I enjoyed it, and I don't know why I will do it again
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals — except the weasel
Hello. I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is: No
But we all had an agreement to let each other get away with everything! That's Capitalism!
I’ll keep it short and sweet — Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business
Of course I’ve gone mad with power! Have you ever tried going mad without power? It’s boring and no one listens to you!
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all Matt GroeningAmerican cartoonist (creator: The Simpsons) (Born this day 1954) Well, most grown-ups forget what it was like to be a kid. I vowed that I would never forget
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 15, 2014 18:40:11 GMT 10
Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power
In the popular political imagination we're familiar with the neocons as conniving militarists, masters of intrigue and cabals, graspers for the oil supplies of the world, and all the rest. But here we have them in what I suspect is the truest light: as college kid rubes who head out for a weekend in Vegas, get scammed out of their money by a two-bit hustler on the first night and then get played for fools by a couple hookers who leave them naked and handcuffed to their hotel beds
The great bulk of the public doesn't believe this president [GWB] any more when he tries to gin up a phony crisis. They don't believe he'd have much of an idea of how to deal with a real one. Enough of the lies. Enough of the incompetence and failure
The president [GWB] just seems to be living in some sort of alternative universe populated by the failed gods of his narcissism and vainglory
What we appear to be in for now is the emergence of this phantom conservatism existing out in the ether, wholly cut loose from any connection to the actual people who are uni- versally identified as the conservatives and who claim the label for themselves. We can even go a bit beyond this though. The big claim now is that President Bush isn't a conserve- ative because he hasn't shrunk the size of government and he's a reckless deficit spender
Balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government hasn't been part of conservatism — or to be more precise, Movement Conservatism — for going on thirty years. The conserve- ative movement and the Republican party are the movement and party of deficit spending. And neither has any claim to any real association with limited or small government. Just isn't borne out by any factual record or political agenda. Not in the Reagan presidency, the Bush presidency or the second Bush presidency. The intervening period of fiscal restraint comes under Clinton
There's this old line the wise folks in Washington have that "it's not the crime, but the cover-up." But only fools believe that. It's always about the crime. The whole point of the cover-up is that a full revelation of the underlying crime is not survivableJosh MarshallAmerican award winning political journalist (TPM) (Born this day 1969) To the president the Democrats should be saying, Double or Nothing is Not a Foreign Policy
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 16, 2014 7:47:37 GMT 10
Quotes for the Day:Thou shalt be delivered from sins, and be freed from the acrimony and fury of theologians
Thou shalt go to the light, see God, look upon his Son, learn those wonderful mysteries which thou hast not been able to understand in this life
His own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God
But I hope that by the decision and authority of wise princes that sometime devout and learned men from the churches of other nations and of ours may be summoned together to deliberate about all the controversies and that there be handed down to posterity one harmonious, true, and clear form of doctrine, without any ambiguity. Meanwhile, as far as possible, let us encourage the union of our churches with measured advice
Trouble and perplexity drive us to prayer, and prayer driveth away trouble and perplexity
If I myself do not do my part, I cannot expect anything from God in prayer
There is nothing sweeter nor lovelier than mutual intercourse with friendsPhilip Melanchthon (“The Teacher of Germany”) German theologian (Protestant Reformation) (Born this day 1497) In essentials, unity; in differences, liberty; in all things, charity
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 16, 2014 7:48:27 GMT 10
Ever since the world began to reason, it has been known that there is a state of intelligence higher than the natural man or brute, but to define it has been the problem to be solved
Here they admit two kinds of intelligence — good and bad — both in one person... Then what are these two identities that have had so many names, such as health and disease, happiness and misery, etc.?
All wars are carried on in these two principles. The one to destroy the government is statics; the one to destroy the rebellion and preserve the government is dynamics. This last has to contend with all the ignorance of the lower mode of reason and also the conservative element
But the time must come when this false mode of reasoning must give way to a higher wisdom where all things are proved by science
Now I propose to find an element that every man will admit, whatever his religion or political opinions may be, if he is scientific … It is progression — or the destruction of error
You being blind cannot see the light of wisdom or science, so that my world is to your world a mystery
To oppose a truth when it can be demonstrated beyond a doubt is a dead weight to progressionPhineas P. QuimbyAmerican spiritual philosopher (“New Thought Movement”) (Born this day 1802) When two individuals set out on the road to wisdom they will develop each other and their happiness will be one
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 16, 2014 7:49:16 GMT 10
As our mother earth is a mere speck in the sunbeam in the illimitable universe, so man himself is but a tiny grain of protoplasm in the perishable framework of organic nature. [This] clearly indicates the true place of man in nature, but it dissipates the prevalent illusion of man's supreme importance and the arrogance with which he sets himself apart from the illimitable universe and exalts himself to the position of its most valuable element
In consequence of Darwin's reformed Theory of Descent, we are now in a position to establish scientifically the groundwork of a non-miraculous history of the development of the human race
If any person feels the necessity of conceiving the coming into existence of this matter as the work of a supernatural creative power, of the creative force of something outside of matter, we have nothing to say against it. But we must remark, that thereby not even the smallest advantage is gained for a scientific knowledge of nature. Such a conception of an immaterial force, which as the first creates matter, is an article of faith which has nothing whatever to do with human science. Where faith commences, science ends
It is, however, a most astonishing but incontestable fact, that the history of the evolution of man as yet constitutes no part of general education. Indeed, our so- alled “educated classes" are to this day in total ignorance of the most important circum- stances and the most remarkable phenomena which Anthropogeny has brought to light
An irrefutable proof that such single-celled primaeval animals really existed as the direct ancestors of Man, is furnished according to the fundamental law of biogeny by the fact that the human egg is nothing more than a simple cell
In the course of individual development, inherited characters appear, in general, earlier than adaptive ones, and the earlier a certain character appears in ontogeny, the further back must lie in time when it was acquired by its ancestors
The progressive expansion of Christianity has killed every science, but above all natural philosophy, which necessarily had to oppose it in a hostile manner!Ernst HaeckelGerman biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician and artist (Born this day 1834) Nothing is constant but change! All existence is a perpetual flux of 'being and becoming!' That is the broad lesson of the evolution of the world
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 16, 2014 7:49:51 GMT 10
They know enough who know how to learn
A teacher affects eternity he can never tell, where his influence stops
The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand
No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous
It is impossible to underrate human intelligence — beginning with one's own
No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself
All experience is an arch, to build upon Henry AdamsUS historian, writer ( Education of Henry Adams) (Born this day 1838) Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 16, 2014 7:50:33 GMT 10
I will write that your establishment is a den of anarchists, Freemasons, and counterfeiters
During Humankind’s long centuries societies have risen and fallen, all alike in this one fact which rules all history: the great are protected, the small are crushed
Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?
Sheep run to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the people who devour them. More beastly than any beast, more sheepish than any sheep, the voter names his own executioner and chooses his own devourer, and for this precious “right” a revolution was fought
Nature’s constantly screaming with all its shapes and scents: love each other! Love each other! Do as the flowers. There’s only love
Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appear- ances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher
Schools are miniature universes. They encompass, on a child’s scale, the same kind of domin- ation and repression as the most despotically organized societies. A similar sort of injustice and comparable baseness preside over their choice of idols to elevate and martyrs to tormentOctave MirbeauFrench journalist, art critic, pamphleteer, novelist and playwright (Born this day 1848 / Died this day 1917) The greatest danger of bombs is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke(as al-Qaeda intends)
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 16, 2014 7:51:17 GMT 10
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender
Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe
The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance — that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph
An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains
If nationality is consent, the state is compulsion
The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret
To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of geniusGeorges-Henri Lévesque, CC OQCanadian Dominican priest and sociologist (Born this day 1903) Uncertainty is the refuge of hope
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