“Each of us believes, quite unconsciously of course, that we alone pursue the truth, which the rest are incapable of seeking out and unworthy of attaining. This madness is so deep-rooted and so useful that it is impossible to realize what would become of each of us if it were someday to disappear.”

— Emil M. Cioran, book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

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Emil M. Cioran531

Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911–1995

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

“How different each death is, and yet it leads us into the self-same country, that country which we inhabit so rarely, where we see the worthlessness of what we have long pursued and will so soon return to pursuing.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

“So I say, let us judge each other by our actions, not by theories, not by what we happen to believe -- because that depends very much on where we were born.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

“This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.
It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

“In order for us to maintain our way of living, we must, in a broad sense, tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves. It is not necessary that the lies be particularly believable. The lies act as barriers to truth. These barriers to truth are necessary because without them many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

A Language Older Than Words (2000)

“If we once — and for so long — lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that’s overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

"Whose Future?", from the book Take My Advice : Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two (2007) by James L. Harmon

“A large part of mathematics which becomes useful developed with absolutely no desire to be useful, and in a situation where nobody could possibly know in what area it would become useful; and there were no general indications that it ever would be so.”

John Von Neumann (1903–1957) Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath

"The Role of Mathematics in the Sciences and in Society" (1954) an address to Princeton alumni, published in John von Neumann : Collected Works (1963) edited by A. H. Taub ; also quoted in Out of the Mouths of Mathematicians : A Quotation Book for Philomaths (1993) by R. Schmalz
Context: A large part of mathematics which becomes useful developed with absolutely no desire to be useful, and in a situation where nobody could possibly know in what area it would become useful; and there were no general indications that it ever would be so. By and large it is uniformly true in mathematics that there is a time lapse between a mathematical discovery and the moment when it is useful; and that this lapse of time can be anything from 30 to 100 years, in some cases even more; and that the whole system seems to function without any direction, without any reference to usefulness, and without any desire to do things which are useful.

“What is marvelous is that each day brings us a new reason to disappear.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

“I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)”

Cornel West book Race Matters

Source: Race Matters

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