Daily Quotes

[Tamrin]

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended


The brain is responsible for consciousness, and we can be reasonably sure that when that
brain ceases to be, when it falls apart and decomposes, that will be the end of us. From
that quite a lot of things follow, especially morally. We are the very privileged owners
of a brief spark of consciousness, and we therefore have to take responsibility for it


Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a god


We cannot rely, as Christians or Muslims do, on a world elsewhere, a paradise, to which one
can work towards and maybe make sacrifices, and, crucially, make sacrifices of other people.
We have a marvellous gift, and you see it develop in children, this ability to become aware
that other people have minds just like your own and feelings that are just as important as
your own, and this gift of empathy seems to me to be the building block of our moral system


Was everyone else really as alive as she was?... If the answer was yes, then the
world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices,
and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim
on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was


Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it's okay
to be a boy; for girls it's like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading,
according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading


Finally, you had to measure yourself by other people — there really was nothing else.
Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone taught you something about yourself


Ian McEwan
British novelist and screeenwriter (Atonement)
(Born this day 1948)



No one knows anything, really. It's all rented, or borrowed

[Tamrin]

Democracy needs support and the best support for democracy comes from
other democracies. Democratic nations should... come together in an association
designed to help each other and promote what is a universal value — democracy


Leadership is to do what is right by educating and inspiring an electorate,
empathizing with the moods, needs, wants, and aspirations of humanity


Leadership is a commitment to an idea, to a dream, and to a vision of what can
be. And my dream is for my land and my people to cease fighting and allow
our children to reach their full potential regardless of sex, status, or belief


Ultimately, leadership requires action: daring to take steps that are necessary
but unpopular, challenging the status quo in order to reach a brighter future


I have found that those who do achieve peace never acquiesce to obstacles,
especially those constructed of bigotry, intolerance, and inflexible tradition


I was brought up to believe that human beings are good, which is why
it shocks me to the core when I see human beings behaving badly


I fully understand the men behind Al Qaeda. They have tried to assassinate me
twice before. The Pakistan Peoples Party and I represent everything they fear the
most — moderation, democracy, equality for women, information, and technology


Benazir Bhutto
1st female leader of a Moslem nation (Pakistan)
(Born this day 1953)



I know death comes. I’ve seen too much death, young death

[Tamrin]

All of this happened a long time ago. But not so long ago that everyone who played
a part in it is dead. Some can still be met in dark old rooms with nurses in attendance


As for the myths, take anyone's life and deny that most of it is deliberate self-delusion
— an aggrandizement — a mixture of lies and truth, of what was wanted and what was
had, producing the necessary justification for having been granted life in the first place


Everyone who’s born has come from the sea. Your mother’s womb is just a sea in small.
And birds come of seas on eggs. Horses lie in the sea before they’re born. The placenta is the
sea. Your blood is the sea continued in your veins. We are the ocean — walking on the land


The spaces between the perceiver and the thing
perceived can be closed with a shout of recognition


People can only be found in what they do


Time is light, time is dark. You either dance, or you fall


I doubt we will ever be forgiven. All I hope is — they'll remember we were human beings


Timothy I. Findley, OC, O.Ont
Canadian novelist and playwright
(Died this day 2002)



Complaints about reality are immature

[Tamrin]

Why must we fight for the right to live, over and over, each time the sun rises?


Life hinges on many factors we cannot control. Two of the most important factors,
we can control. We can manage our relationships — and what is life but a series of
relationships? — and we can correct our mistakes, here on earth within our life span


One of the cheapest commodities in the world is unfulfilled genius. All of us want to
be known as a unique individual, the one who broke out of the pack. So, you offer
yourself up as a sacrifice and what you’re afraid of is losing and being thrown back
into the pack. One question taunts you. Do you want to have, or do you want to be?


The only time we can attract a crowd is for some pilgrimage up some god-
damned holy mountain to chase the snakes and banshees out of the country


In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and
gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And
after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a million years
when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then, finally, one of these civilizations, say
five billion years from now, will last because people treat each other the way they ought to


You aren't a true husband/man until you've done the work of a wife/women


I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that that, they have to get made and stay
mad. If things don't make a writer mad, he'll end up writing Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail


Leon Uris
American novelist (Exodus, Trinity)
(Died this day 2003)



'Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand.
'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage

[Tamrin]

[Tamrin]

Sunday’s Quotes:

If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we are at no loss to perceive that
the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions of the human mind


If we would indicate an idea which, throughout the whole course of history, has ever
more and more widely extended its empire, or which, more than any other, testifies to
the much-contested and still more decidedly misunderstood perfectibility of the whole
human race, it is that of establishing our common humanity — of striving to remove
the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected among men


True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind
and exercise of the body; the two are ever united


To the yoke of necessity every one willingly bows the head. Still, wherever
an actually complicated aspect of things presents itself, it is more difficult
to discover exactly what is necessary; but by the very acknowledgment of
the principle, the problem invariably becomes simpler and the solution easier


To inquire and to create; these are the grand centres around which all human
pursuits revolve, or at least to these objects do they all more or less directly refer


Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband
be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household


That government is best which makes itself unnecessary


Wilhelm von Humboldt
German diplomat and Enlightenment philosopher
(Born this day 1767)



I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more
on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves

[Tamrin]

1 of 2:

Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird
at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen
in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere


It is curious to look back and realize upon what trivial and apparently coincidental
circumstances great events frequently turn as easily and naturally as a door on its hinges


Men and women, empires and cities, thrones, principalities, and powers, mountains, rivers,
and unfathomed seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all have their day, and all must go


Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but
the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been,
can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever


The law of England is much more severe upon offences against property
than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money


I have never observed that the religious are more
eager to die than the rest of us poor mortals


Hard is it to die, because our delicate flesh doth shrink back from the
worm it will not feel, and from that unknown which the winding-sheet
doth curtain from our view. But harder still, to my fancy, would it be to
live on, green in the leaf and fair, but dead and rotten at the core, and
feel that other secret worm of recollection gnawing ever at the heart


Bro. Sir H. Rider Haggard, KBE
English author (She, King Solomon's Mines)
(Born this day 1856)



Let them be brought to the house of 'She-who-must-be-obeyed'

[Tamrin]

2 of 2:

I believe that the individual, or rather the identity that animates him, came from the
Source of all life, a long while, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago,
and when his career is finished, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of years hence,
or perhaps tomorrow, will return perfected, but still as an individual, to dwell in or with
that Source of Life. I believe also that his various existences, here or elsewhere, are fore-
known and fore-ordained, although in a sense he may shape them by the action of his free
will, and nothing which he can do will lengthen or shorten one of them by a single hour.


Then I pointed to the veiled statue of Truth behind me, saying, "Lo! there is Isis, a
beauteous thing with a hidden face ruling over the world. She is one of Divinity's
thousand forms. Aye, She is its essence, frozen to the shape we know in this world's icy
air, and having a countenance chiselled differently from age to age by the changeful
thought of man. She lives in every soul, yet in no two souls is She the same. She is not,
yet eternally She is. Invisible, intangible; ever pursued and ever fleeing; never seen
and never handled, yet She answers prayer and Her throne is not in the high heavens
but in the heart of every creature that draws the breath of life. One day we shall behold
Her and not know Her. Yet She will know us. Such is Isis: formless, yet in every form;
dead, yet living in all that breathes; a priest-bred phantasy, yet the one great truth.


"If Isis be thus, what of the world's other gods?"
"They all are Isis and Isis is them all. The thousand gods men worship are but one god
wearing many faces. Or rather they are two gods, the god of good and the god of evil; Horus
and Typhon who war continually for the souls of things created by that Divine, unseen,
unknown yet eternally existent, who reigns beyond the stars alone in fearful glory and from
his nameless habitation looks down both on gods and men, the puppets of his hands; on the
rolling worlds that bear them, on the seas of space between and on the infusing spirit whose
operation is the breath of life. So it was in the beginning, is now and shall be eternally.”


I am She whom thou dost know as Isis of the Egyptians; but what else I am strive not thou
to learn, it is beyond thy strength. For I am all things, Life is my spirit, and Nature is my
raiment. I am the laughter of the babe, I am the maiden’s love, I am the mother’s kiss.
I am the Child and Servant of the Invisible that is God, that is Law, that is Fate – though
myself I be not God and Fate and Law. When winds blow and oceans roar upon the face
of the Earth thou hearest my voice; when thou gazest on the starry firmament thou seest
my countenance; when the spring blooms out in flowers, that is my smile, Harmachis. For
I am Nature’s self, and all her shapes are shapes of Me. I breathe in all that breathes. I wax
and wane in the changeful moon: I grow and gather in the tides: I rise with the suns: I flash
with the lightning and thunder in the storms. Nothing is too great for the measure of my
majesty, nothing is so small that I cannot find a home therein. I am in thee and thou art
in Me, O Harmachis. That which bade thee be bade Me also be. Therefore, though I am
great and thou art little, have no fear. For we are bound together by the common bond
of life—that life which flows through suns and stars and spaces, through Spirits and the
souls of men, welding all Nature to a whole that, changing ever, is yet eternally the same.


I believe it was the old Egyptians, a very wise people, probably indeed much wiser than
we know, for in the leisure of their ample centuries they had time to think out things,
who declared that each individual personality is made up of six or seven different ele-
ments, although the Bible only allows us three, namely, body, soul, and spirit. The body
that the man or woman wore, if I understand their theory aright which perhaps I, an
ignorant person, do not, was but a kind of sack or fleshly covering containing these
different principles. Or mayhap it did not contain them all, but was simply a house as it
were, in which they lived from time to time and seldom all together, although one or
more of them was present continually, as though to keep the place warmed and aired.


Anyhow of one thing I am quite sure, we are not always the same. Different person-
alities actuate us at different times. In one hour passion of this sort or the other is
our lord; in another we are reason itself. In one hour we follow the basest appetites;
in another we hate them and the spirit arising through our mortal murk shines with-
in or above us like a star. In one hour our desire is to kill and spare not; in another
we are filled with the holiest compassion even towards an insect or a snake,
and are ready to forgive like a god. Everything rules us in turn, to such an extent
indeed, that sometimes one begins to wonder whether we really rule anything.


Doubtless it is so, yet while man lives, always there is God, though his shapes be many.
Always there is the eternal Good, as in the dream the holy Noot named the ultimate Divine,
and behold! it is called Ammon or otherwise. Always there is Evil and behold! it is called
Set or Baal, or Moloch, or otherwise. Always the stained soul of man seeks redemption,
and he who saves is called Osiris or otherwise. Always Nature endures and she is called
Isis or otherwise. Always the great world that will not die strains and pulses to new life,
and the Life-bringer is called Aphrodite, or otherwise. And so continually. Where man is,
again I say, there was and is and will be God, or Good—the Spirit named by many names.


Bro. Sir H. Rider Haggard
(Died this day 1925)



More than thirty years ago two atoms of the eternal Energy sped forth from the heart of it which
we call God, and incarnated themselves in the human shapes that were destined to hold them
for a while, as vases hold perfumes, or goblets wine, or as sparks of everlasting radium inhabit
the bowels of the rock. Perhaps these two atoms, or essences, or monads indestructible,
did but repeat an adventure, or many, many adventures. Perhaps again and again they had
proceeded from that Home august and imperishable on certain mornings of the days of Time, to
return thither at noon or nightfall, laden with the fruits of gained experience. So at least one of
them seemed to tell the other before all was done and that other came to believe. If so, over
what fields did they roam throughout the æons, they who having no end, could have no beginning?
Not those of this world only, we may be sure. It is so small and there are so many others,
millions upon millions of them, and such an infinite variety of knowledge is needed to shape
the soul of man, even though it remain as yet imperfect and but a shadow of what it shall be.

[Tamrin]

Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler
but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat


The scientific doctrine of progress is destined to replace not only the myth of progress,
but all other myths of human earthly destiny. It will inevitably become
one of the cornerstones of man's theology, or whatever may be the future
substitute for theology, and the most important external support for human ethics


The popular and scientific views of 'race' no longer coincide. The word 'race', as applied
scientifically to human groupings, has lost any sharpness of meaning. To-day it is hardly
definable in scientific terms, except as an abstract concept which may, under certain condit-
ions, very different from those now prevalent, have been realized approximately in the past
and might, under certain other but equally different conditions, be realized in the distant future


To speculate without facts is to attempt to enter a house of which one
has not the key, by wandering aimlessly round and round, searching
the walls and now and then peeping through the windows. Facts are the key


Today the god hypothesis has ceased to be scientifically tenable ...
and its abandonment often brings a deep sense of relief.
Many people assert that this abandonment of the god hypothesis
means the abandonment of all religion and all moral sanctions.
This is simply not true. But it does mean, once our relief at jettisoning
an outdated piece of ideological furniture is over,
that we must construct some thing to take its place


Humanism: An outlook that places man and his concerns at the centre of interest.
Modern Humanism, which does away with traditional Christianity,
is characterised by its faith in the power of human beings
to create their own future, collectively and personally


Evolution ... is the most powerful and the most
comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on Earth


Sir Julian Huxley, FRS
English evolutionary biologist and philosopher
(Born this day 1887)



We all know how the size of sums of money appears to vary
in a remarkable way according as they are being paid in or paid out

[Tamrin]

We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution
and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out… we creep in upon
ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night… and thus we wait for morning


I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and
fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one
another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another


Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of the days; — when we are
resting they are good; under fire, they are dead. Fields of craters within and without


Modesty and conscientiousness receive their reward only in novels.
In life they are exploited and then shoved aside


You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal — no one
will see it. But when a button is missing — everyone sees that


Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum


Life is a disease, brother, and death begins already at birth. Every breath,
every heartbeat, is a moment of dying — a little shove toward the end


Erich Maria Remarque
German novelist (All Quiet on the Western Front)
(Born this day 1898)



Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are
just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same
dying and the same agony — Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?