Quotes about the trip
page 23

“If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest (1996)

Hurt, Imagination, Housing, Personality

“Then Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh walked hand in hand down the forest path and they said goodbye. So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing and waiting.”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

Waiting, Boy

“The cool-person syndrome is peculiarly American. Part of that has to do with the way the educational business is run in the U. S. It’s not based on how much you can teach your child: it’s based on how much money the suppliers of basic materials can make off your child. Somewhere along the line most people pick up the desire to be a cool person, which is just another way to make them buy things. Once you’ve decided that you need to be a cool person, it makes you a possible victim of anyone whose products are the equivalent of bottled smoke. Somebody tells you to buy this particularly useless item and you’ll be a cool person. No matter how stupid it seems, you have to buy it. Pet Rocks. Pringle’s potato chips. whatever it is — the newest, the latest. Since the cool-person thing is something you learn in school, and since the school business is pretty suspicious and definitely tied up with the government, it makes you wonder whether or not the desire to be cool is part of a government plot to make you buy stupid things.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)

Money, School, Business, Personality

“The political worshipers of routine, incapable of surveying the historical process in its complexity, in its internal clashes and contradictions, imagined to themselves that history was preparing the way for the Socialist order simultaneously and systematically on all sides, so that concentration of production and the development of a Communist morality in the producer and the consumer mature simultaneously with the electric plough and a parliamentary majority.”

Leon Trotsky book Terrorism and Communism

Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), Ch. 1

Imagination, History

“Yet of old the matter seemed even to be a law, and a certain law-giver among them bade the domestic slaves neither to use ointments when dry (i. e. except in bathing) nor to keep youths, giving the free this place of honor, or rather of shamefulness. Yet they, however, did not think the thing shameful, but as being a grand privilege, and one too great for slaves, the Athenian people, the wisest of people, and Solon who is so great among them, permitted it to the free alone. And sundry other books of the philosophers may one see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature: but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this were worse than any punishment. Yet if you say they found pleasure in it, you tell me what adds to the vengeance. For suppose I were to see a person running naked, with his body all besmeared with mire, and yet not covering himself, but exulting in it, I should not rejoice with him, but should rather bewail that he did not even perceive that he was doing shamefully.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Hell, Law, Whore, Personality

“This idea of purity and that you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke — you should get over that quickly. … The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you. … I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media — there is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself. Did you see how woke I was, I called you out. Then I’m going to get on my TV and watch my show … That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

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

Comments at an Obama Foundation event, Chicago (29 October 2019), as quoted in "Obama Calls Out Online Call-Out Culture: 'That’s Not Activism"", Rolling Stone (30 October 2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-calls-out-call-out-culture-not-activism-905600/ 2019

People, Fight, Sense, World

“There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You desire peace; and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways. First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This, I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is, to give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

I do not believe any compromise, embracing the maintenance of the Union, is now possible. All I learn, leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion, is its military — its army. That army dominates all the country, and all the people, within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present; because such man or men, have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them.
1860s, Letter to James C. Conkling (1863)

Peace, Imagination

“I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ``the Union as it was.´´ If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Letter to Horace Greeley (1862)

Time

“It is a dreadful thing to come into the Presidency in this way; but it would be far worse to be morbid about it. Here is the task, and I have got to do it to the best of my ability.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Probably 1901. Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historical Site -- National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/thri/learn/historyculture/index.htm 1900s

“It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.”

Jordan Peterson book 12 Rules for Life

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't

World, Gratitude

“New Zealand don’t contribute really anything to the defense effort that we’ve got where we’re trying to surveil boats that might be on their way to New Zealand, so I hope that (NZ Justice Minister) Andrew Little reflects a little more on the relationship between Australia and New Zealand where we do a lot of the heavy lifting.”

Peter Dutton (1970) Australian politician

The Australian, July 2018

Hope, Justice, Effort

“I’ve learned so many things since then. I’ve changed in a way that involves elimination for the sake of evolution. There’s less emphasis on trying to figure things out. It’s about letting things be. I’m focusing on listening to the silence underneath everything. That’s what I try to connect with. I can listen to the silence right here, right now while we’re talking, and it feels so good. I’m in love with the silence.”

Erykah Badu (1971) American neo-soul singer

On how her viewpoint has changed since releasing the album Baduizm in “In Conversation: Erykah Badu” https://www.vulture.com/2018/01/erykah-badu-in-conversation.html in New York Magazine (Jan 2018)

Silence, Learning, Love, Making love

“Marx may be wrong in some of his statements, or his theory of value; this I am not competent to judge. But he seems to me to have possessed quite an extraordinary degree of insight into social phenomena, and this insight was apparently due to the scientific method he adopted. This method, applied to past history as well as current events, helps us in understanding them far more than any other method of apporach, and it is because of this that the most revealing and keen analysis of the changes that are taking place in the world today come from Marxist writers. It is easy to point out that Marx ignored or underrated certain subsequent tendencies, like the rise of a revolutionary element in the middle class, which is so notable today. But the whole value of Marxism seems to me to lie in its absence of dogmatism, in its stress on a certain outlook and mode of approach, and in its attitude to action. That outlook helps us in understanding the social phenomena of our own times, and points out the way of action and escape.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Time, History, Understanding, Past

“It is difficult to be patient with many communists; they have developed a peculiar method of irritating others. But they are a sorely tried people, and, outside the Soviet Union, they have to contend against enormous difficulties. I have always admitted their great courage and capacity for sacrifice. They suffer greatly, as unhappily untold millions suffer in various ways, but not blindly before a malign and all-powerful fate. They suffer as human beings, and there is a tragic nobility about such suffering.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Courage, Fate, Suffering, People

“Violence was common in both places, but the violence of the capitalist order seemed inherent in it; whilst the violence of Russia, bad though it was, aimed at a new order based on peace and cooperation and real freedom for the masses. With all her blunders, Soviet Russia had triumphed over enormous difficulties and taken great strides towards this new order. While the rest of the world was in the grip of the depression and going backward in some ways, in the Soviet country a great new world was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In particular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Central Asia under the Soviet regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favour of Russia, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a bright and heartening phenomenon in a dark and dismal world.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Peace, Dead, Freedom, Country

“As we were very much pressed for time we were unable to see as much of the jail as we wanted to. We had an impression that we had been shown the brighter side of jail life. Nonetheless, two facts stood out. One was that we had actually seen desirable and radical improvements over the old system prevailing even now in most countries and the second and even more important fact was the mentality of the prison officials, and presumably the higher officials of the government also, in regard to jails. Actual conditions may or may not be good but the general principles laid down for jails are certainly far in advance of anything we had known elsewhere in practice. Anyone with a knowledge of prisons in India and of the barbarous way in which handcuffs, fetters and other punishments are used will appreciate the difference. The governor of the prison in Moscow who took us round was all the time laying stress on the human side of jail life, and how it was their endeavour to keep this in the front and not to make the prisoner feel in any way dehumanised or outcasted. I wish we in India would remember this wholesome principle and practise it in our daily lives even outside jail…. It can be said without a shadow of doubt that to be in a Russian prison is far more preferable than to be a worker in an Indian factory, whose lot is 10 to 11 hours work a day and then to live in a crowded and dark and airless tenement, hardly fit for an animal. The mere fact that there are some prisons like the ones we saw is in itself something for the Soviet Government to be proud of.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Soviet Russia: Some Random Sketches and Impressions (1949)

Time, Country, Animals, Knowledge

“Russia today is a Soviet country, and its government is run by representatives of the workers and peasants. In some ways it it the most advanced country in the world. Whatever actual conditions may be, the whole structure of government and society is based on the principle of social equality.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

World, Country

“Japan had come to terms with Russia because of her difficulties, but this did not mean approval of communism. Communism meant the end of emperor-worship, and feudalism and the exploitation of the masses by the ruling class, and indeed almost everything that the existing order stood for… But communism is the outcome of widespread misery due to social conditions, and unless these conditions are improved, mere repression can be no remedy. There is a terrible misery in Japan at present. The peasantry, as in China and India, are crushed under a tremendous burden of debt. Taxation, especially because of heavy military expenditure and war needs, is very heavy. Reports come of starving peasants trying to live on grass and roots, and of selling even their children. The middle classes are also in a bad way owing to unemployment and suicides have increased.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

War, Bad luck, Children, Grass

“We realized in our hearts that we could not do much till conditions were radically changed-hence our overwhelming desire for independence-and yet the passion for progress filled us and the wish to emulate other countries which had gone so far ahead in many ways. We thought of the United States of America and even of some eastern countries which were forging ahead. But most of all we had the example of the Soviet Union which in two brief decades, full of war and civil strife and in the face of what appeared to be insurmountable difficulties, had made tremendous progress. Some were attracted to communism, others were not, but all were fascinated by the advance of the Soviet Union in education and culture and medical care and physical fitness and in the solution of the problem of nationalities-by the amazing and prodigious effort to create a new world out of the dregs of the old.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book The Discovery of India

The Discovery of India (1946)

Country, War, Heart, Communication

“Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"Fear, the Foundation of Religion"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Religion, Understanding, Making love, Support

“Aluminium, however, will not stop at downing copper. Before many years have passed it will be engaged in a fierce struggle with iron, and in the latter it will find an adversary not easy to conquer. The issue of the contest will largely depend on whether iron shall be indispensable in electric machinery. This the future alone can decide. The magnetism as exhibited in iron is an isolated phenomenon in nature. What it is that makes this metal behave so radically different from all other materials in this respect has not yet been ascertained, though many theories have been suggested. As regards magnetism, the molecules of the various bodies behave like hollow beams partly filled with a heavy fluid and balanced in the middle in the manner of a see-saw. Evidently some disturbing influence exists in nature which causes each molecule, like such a beam, to tilt either one or the other way. If the molecules are tilted one way, the body is magnetic; if they are tilted the other way, the body is non-magnetic; but both positions are stable, as they would be in the case of the hollow beam, owing to the rush of the fluid to the lower end. Now, the wonderful thing is that the molecules of all known bodies went one way, while those of iron went the other way. This metal, it would seem, has an origin entirely different from that of the rest of the globe. It is highly improbable that we shall discover some other and cheaper material which will equal or surpass iron in magnetic qualities.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Dependency, Future, Nature, Making love

“There is no way to reach the end without mastering the beginning.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

“The American way of life is not up for negotiation. Period.”

George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American politician, 41st President of the United States

Stance struck at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 https://www.economist.com/leaders/2003/02/13/a-greener-bush. Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/pope-francis-latest-bridge-gap-between-religion-culture-180956737/

Life

“This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure-pile. That sentence is Germanic, and shows that I am acquiring that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 1 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2H_4_0002 Christian Science (1907)

Family, Housing, Light, Mountain

“Happinessis not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 95

Life, Happiness

“The darkness. Goddamn the darkness. It seemed to Garraty they had been buried alive in it. Immured in it. Dawn was a century away. Many of them would never see the dawn. Or the sun. They were buried six feet deep in the darkness. All they needed was the monotonous chanting of the priest, his voice muffled but not entirely obscured by the new-packed darkness, above which the mourners stood. The mourners were not even aware that they were here, they were alive, they were screaming and scratching and clawing at the coffin-lid darkness, the air was flaking and rusting away, the air was turning into poison gas, hope fading until hope itself was darkness, and above all of it the nodding chapel-bell voice of the priest and the impatient, shuffling feet of mourners anxious to be off into the warm May sunshine. Then, overmastering that, the sighing, shuffling chorus of the bugs and the beetles, squirming their way through the earth, come for the feast…I could go crazy, Garraty thought. I could go right the fuck off my rocker.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

The Long Walk (1979)

Sun, Hope

“The Jewish Nigger, Lassalle… It is now quite plain to me — as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify — that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a nigger).”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow’s importunity is also nigger-like. Marx to Engels in Manchester http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.html (30 July 1862), MECW Volume 41, p. 388; first published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

“For this companion volume to A New Earth, I selected passages from the original book that felt particularly suitable for inspirational or meditative reading. For this reason I do not recommend that you read this book straight through from cover to cover. It would be far more beneficial to read, at the most, one chapter at a time, stopping at and perhaps rereading whatever passages elicit an inner response. Then let the words sink in and sense the truth to which they point, which is, of course, already within you. It can also be helpful to open the book at random occasionally, read one page or just one passage and let the words point the way to that dimension deep within that is beyond words, beyond thought. The truth to which the words point, the timeless dimension of consciousness, cannot be arrived at through discursive thought and conceptual understanding.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

From The Introduction https://eckharttolle.com/oneness-with-all-life-excerpt/ Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections from A New Earth (2008)

Time, Reading, Understanding, Help

“I used to be a hide-bound Tory simply for traditional and antiquarian reasons—and because I had never done any real thinking on civics and industry and the future. The depression—and its concomitant publicisation of industrial, financial, and governmental problems—jolted me out of my lethargy and led me to reëxamine the facts of history in the light of unsentimental scientific analysis; and it was not long before I realised what an ass I had been. The liberals at whom I used to laugh were the ones who were right—for they were living in the present while I had been living in the past. They had been using science while I had been using romantic antiquarianism. At last I began to recognise something of the way in which capitalism works—always piling up concentrated wealth and impoverishing the bulk of the population until the strain becomes so intolerable as to force artificial reform.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Jennie K. Plaiser (8 July 1936), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 564
Non-Fiction, Letters

History, Light, Past, Future

“He always knew which way the camel would lie down. This old Urdu saying was particularly applicable to Gujral who had a deep love of Urdu poetry.”

I. K. Gujral (1919–2012) Indian politician

Mark Tully in: "Inder Kumar Gujral obituary"

Love, Making love, Lie

“Besides being a political stalwart…he was an all-rounder in a way. His contribution towards rebuilding modern India, his contribution in the making of West Bengal, can never be forgotten by anyone.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister described him in "Bharat Ratna Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy".

Making love

“I am bothered by the misinformation which gets disseminated uncritically through the media and by the obstructions which prevent correct information from being disseminated. These obstructions come about in many ways - personal, institutional, through self-imposed inhibitions, through external inhibitions, through outright dishonesty, through incompetence - the list is a long one.”

Serge Lang (1927–2005) mathematician

Personality, Self-confidence

“While fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample, and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded. Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful, he alone is at peace.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 2

Truth, Peace

“Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, by instinct, imagination, and souvenir, considers in his plan the future of Italy, and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the net profit is for Italy and the net loss is for France. Since Theodoric and the Lombard kings, the Pope, in preserving his temporal sovereignty and spiritual omnipotence, has maintained the sub-divisions of Italy; let this obstacle be removed and Italy will once more become a nation. Napoleon prepares the way, and constitutes it beforehand by restoring the Pope to his primitive condition, by withdrawing from him his temporal sovereignty and limiting his spiritual omnipotence, by reducing him to the position of managing director of Catholic consciences and head minister of the principal cult authorized in the empire.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Hippolyte Taine in Napoleon's views on religion. About, Other Source: Archive https://archive.org/stream/jstor-25102177/25102177_djvu.txt

Loss, Imagination, Future

“What I know is that suffering creates suffering and the ONLY way to change that in the world is to become JOY and begin infecting other people with it. If you become joy, you will not make other people unhappy and the cycle of suffering… ends. Why do I care? Because I am you. Your suffering is the world's suffering. You can not suffer and not have it affect EVERYTHING in existence.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

People, Suffering, Joy, World

“The prison is overcrowded, the calendars full, the judges busy, the lawyers ambitious, and the cops zealous. What does it matter if someone gets trapped here for a year or two, gets ruined here, goes mad here, commits murder or suicide here? It's too bad, but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I do not claim that everyone in prison here is innocent, but I do claim that the law, as it operates, is guilty, and that the prisoners, therefore, are all unjustly imprisoned. Is it conceivable, after all, that any middle-class white boy — or, indeed, almost any white boy — would have been arrested on so grave a charge as murder, with such flimsy substantiation, and forced to spend, as of this writing, three years in prison? What force, precisely, is operating when a prisoner is advised, requested, ordered, intimidated, or forced, to confess to a crime he has not committed, and promised a lighter sentence for so perjuring and debasing himself? Does the law exist for the purpose of furthering the ambitions of those who have sworn to uphold the law, or is it seriously to be considered as a moral, unifying force, the health and strength of a nation?”

James Baldwin book No Name in the Street

No Name in the Street (1972)

Law, Business, Bad luck, Health

“But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro.
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news”

Robert Browning book Sordello

Book the First
Sordello (1840)

Hate, Wine, Heart, Fear

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

George S. Patton: "Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way", as quoted in Pocket Patriot: Quotes from American Heroes (2005) edited by Kelly Nickell, p. 157
Misattributed

Leadership

“We have two essential strategies for coping: the way of avoidance or the way of attention.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Three, Brains Changing, Minds Changing

“If that’s the way you want to describe a government that’s going to be active and focused on making sure that we have jobs in our regions, that we have infrastructure that’s well supported and that we’re growing our economy by ensuring that we are investing in our people, then that might be the way you describe it. I describe it as a proactive government – one that’s focused on people.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

About if her administration will going to implement a economic nationalist policy.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

Support, Making love, People

“I advise you to fear Allah alone, with no partner of associate. I advise you to treat the first Muhâjireen well and acknowledge their seniority. I advise you to treat the Ansār well, and show approval of those among them who do well, and forgive those among them who make mistakes. I advise you to treat the people of the outlying regions well, for they are a shield against the enemy and conduits of fay; do not take anything from them except that which is surplus to their needs. I advise you to treat the people of the desert well, for they are the original Arabs and the protectors of Islam. Take from the surplus of their wealth and give it to their poor. I advise you to treat ahl adh-dhīmmah well, to defend them against their enemies and not burden them with more than they can bear if they fulfill their duties towards the believers or pay the Jizyāh with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. I advise you to fear Allah and fear His wrath, lest you do anything wrong. I advise you to fear Allah with regard to the people, but do not fear the people with regard to Allah. I advise you to treat the people justly, and to devote yourself to looking after them and protecting them against their enemies. Do not show any favour to the rich over the poor. That will be better for your spiritual well being and will help to reduce your burden of sin, and it will be better for your Hereafter, until you meet the One Who knows what is in your heart. I instruct you to be strict with regard to the commands of Allah, His sacred limits and disobedience with all people, both relatives and others. Do not show any mercy to anyone until you have settled the score with him according to his offence. Treat all people as equal, and do not worry about who is as fault or fear the blame of the blamers. Beware of showing favouritism among the believers with regard to the fay that Allah has put you in charge of, lest that lead to injustice. Keep away from that. You are in a position between this world and the Hereafter. If you conduct your affairs justly in this world and refrain from indulgence, that will earn you faith and divine pleasure. I advise you not to let yourself or anyone else do wrong to ahl al-dhimmah. I advise you sincerely to seek thereby the Countenance of Allah and the Hereafter. I have chosen advice for you that I would offer to myself or my son. If you do as I have advised you and follow my instructions, you will have gained a great deal. If you don not accept it or pay attention to it, and do not handle your affairs in the way that pleases Allah, that will be a shortcoming on your part and you will have failed to be sincere, because whims and desires are the same and the cause of sin is Iblīs, who calls man to everything that will lead to his doom. He misguided the generations who came before you and led them to Hell, what a terrible abode. What a bad deal it is for a man to take the enemy of Allah as his friend, who calls him to disobey Allah. Adhere to the truth, strive hard to reach it and admonish yourself. I urge you by Allah to show mercy to the Muslims, honour their elderly, show compassion to their young ones and respect the knowledgeable ones among them. Do not harm them or humiliate them, and do not keep the fay for yourself lest you anger them. Do not deprive them of their stipends when they become due, thus making them poor. Do not keep them away on campaigns for so long that they end up having no children. Do not allow wealth to circulate only among the rich. Do not close your door to the people or allow the strong to oppress the weak. This is my advice to you, as Allah is my witness, and I greet you with peace.”

Umar (585–644) Second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate and a companion of Muhammad

Umar ibn al-Khattab, Vol. 2, p. 389-390, also quoted in At-Tabqaat ul-Kabir, Vol. 3, p. 339
Last Advise

Sincerity, Forgiveness, Hell, Anger

“That's a very good way to learn the craft of writing — from reading.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Faulkner in the University, p. 117
Faulkner in the University (1959)

Reading, Learning

“The only way to have peace is to prepare for war.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

To the Duke of Newcastle (c. August 1758), quoted in Basil Williams, The Life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Volume I (London: Longmans, 1913), p. 379
1750s

War, Peace

“It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.”

David Benatar (1966) South African philosopher

Source: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006), Introduction, p. 6

Suffering, Children, People

“The knight's song and direction
I found new, but not confused;
He left our path,
but strode strongly and confidently.
When you want to evaluate, according to rules, something which doesn't follow your rules,
You have to forget your own ways,
And seek out its rules!”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Original: (de) Des Ritters Lied und Weise,
sie fand ich neu, doch nicht verwirrt;
verliess er unsre Gleise,
schritt er doch fest und unbeirrt.
Wollt ihr nach Regeln messen,
was nicht nach eurer Regeln Lauf,
der eignen Spur vergessen,
sucht davon erst die Regeln auf!
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs, Act 1, Scene 3

Forgetting, Confidence, Self-confidence

“There are many ways to motivate people to do things, but loyalty comes from the ability to inspire people.”

Simon Sinek (1973) British/American author and motivational speaker

Source: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Motivation, Loyalty, People

“The Mass is a priviledged encounter with Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a philosophy, is not a social theory, is not an ideology, Christianity is a relationship with Christ, it is a friendship with Him. Everything in Christianity relates to and comes back to that friendship. What's the Mass? The Mass is the most intense way to see the ethernity that we can commune with Jesus.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Bishop Barron on the Mass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIGXtDR2GCk&feature=youtu.be&t=120 (November 9, 2017)

Friendship, Communication, Christ, Relation ships

“Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath. Or when a dark mood comes upon you and you start getting into a negative mind-pattern and thinking how dreadful your life is, your thinking has become aligned with the pain-body, and you have become unconscious and vulnerable to the pain-body's attack. "Unconscious," the way that I use the word here, means to be identified with some mental or emotional pattern. It implies a complete absence of the watcher.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

Source: The Power of Now (1997), p. 29-30

Pain, Anger, Thinking, Life

“Instead of "watching the thinker," you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997)

Life, Drawing, Thinking

“When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry.”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997) p. 16

Imagination, Time, Past, Future

“I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Source: Song Song Man in the Mirror

World, Making love, Change

“I haven't calculated why white signifies completeness, and it's not an impeccable colour, but a colour that lacks itself. Black is comprehensive and black is full of obliviousness. It is a true completion. This world is a downside. It's just a tiny point in the gloaming twilight. Denial is inclusive and it's about the idealised assertives and defensives, furthermore protecting the aspects of the destructive, senseless actualities of current counterinsurgencies. The representation of one fulfillment is more pleasant than all the blemishes and the settlement of this one imperfection. There are defects in this world, and on the other hand, hegemony. "Why don't you erase the perception, only negritude?" “How can I take this cobblestone and consolidate it?” You will be fully embossed with this extraordinary world. You will see such translucent melancholy. You will feel as if you can use adhesive in the last memoir of this one humankind and you will only experience the last time before, you will see the emptiness for one instant and then the bright glistening light way ahead of you. - Rok Seo.”

RokSeo

Time, Light, World, Feeling

“Love is not about concepts; love is about action. The only way to master love is to practice love. You don't need to justify your love, you don't need to explain your love; you just need to practice your love.”

Miguel Ángel Ruiz (1952) Mexican writer and philosopher

Source: The Mastery of Love (1999), Ch.4 - p.71

Love, Making love

“Let us consider Buddhism and contemporary science. It is evident that Buddhists are most open to all evolutionary achievements. Of course, this quality was instilled by their basic Teaching. Becoming familiar with the foundations we see how greatly the statements of the Teacher are confirmed by the achievements of our contemporary science. The same results which Einstein reached by way of experiment were reached by ancient Buddhists in a purely contemplative way.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

Source: Foundations of Buddhism (1930)

Science, Teachers

“No teaching foresaw the future with such precision as Buddhism. Parallel with reverence to the Buddha, Buddhism develops the veneration of Bodhisattvas—future Buddhas. According to the tradition, Gotama, before reaching the state of Buddha, had been a Bodhisattva for many centuries. The word, Bodhisattva, comprises two concepts: Bodhi—enlightenment or awakening, and Sattva—the essence. Who are these Boddhisattvas? The disciples of Buddhas, who voluntarily have renounced their personal liberation and, following the example of their Teacher, have entered upon a long, weary thorny path of help to humanity. Such Bodhisattvas appear on earth in the midst of the most varying conditions of life. Physically indistinguishable in any way from the rest of humanity, they differ completely in their psychology, constantly being the heralds of the principle of the common welfare.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

Source: Foundations of Buddhism (1930)

Personality, Future, Help, Teachers

“The development of fixed capital indicates in still another respect the degree of development of wealth generally, or of capital…
The creation of a large quantity of disposable time apart from necessary labour time for society generally and each of its members (i.e. room for the development of the individuals’ full productive forces, hence those of society also), this creation of not-labour time appears in the stage of capital, as of all earlier ones, as not-labour time, free time, for a few. What capital adds is that it increases the surplus labour time of the mass by all the means of art and science, because its wealth consists directly in the appropriation of surplus labour time; since value directly its purpose, not use value. It is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development. But its tendency always, on the one side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour...
The mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.”

Karl Marx book Grundrisse

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, pp. 628–629.

Time, Wealth, Art, Appearance

“The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the state are continually evolving out of the life-process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they are effective, produce materially, and are active under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.
The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conception, ideas, etc.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.
Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846)

Religion, Imagination, Law, People

“It seems that the disenchantment of fate (though underestimated) was a milestone on the path of human development, the day we doubted ways of fate could only be compared to a Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. The first thought approach of modernity is the contradiction of destiny, with its sense of divine power ruling from the outer planes all phenomena and events happening in real world.”

Marcin Malek (1975) Polish writer

Source: We'll go asleep, poems and ballads, "An innocent twist of fate" pg. 46

World, Sense, Fate

“I really believe in the art of storytelling and as an actor, I think it’s such a great opportunity to be able to do what we do because so many people are trying to do that and I’ve worked for so long to try to get interesting opportunities that I just wanna make sure I do the character justice. I guess you could call it method in many ways but for me, it’s just trying to commit to the character in the best way possible, whatever that entails, whether it’s giving yourself acne or diving into a very dark place.”

Calum Worthy (1991) Canadian actor

Calum Worthy (‘The Act’) on the ‘harsh’ sentence Nicholas Godejohn received https://www.goldderby.com/article/2019/calum-worthy-the-act-hulu-nicholas-godejohn-video-interview-transcript/ (April 29, 2019)

Justice, People, Art, Thinking

“All good niggas, all the niggas who change the world, die in violence. They don't die in regular ways.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Details magazine interview (Spring 1996)

World, Change

“Building your personal brand is one of the few ways you can ensure that you don't stay broke.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11882368/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes

Personality

“Never play to the gallery... Never work for other people in what you do. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society... I think it's terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfil other people's expectations.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Inspirations (1997), quoted in "Looking back at David Bowie's invaluable advice for young artists" https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-bowie-advice-young-artists/

Thinking, People, Understanding

“Mathematicians have various ways of judging the merits of new theorems and constructions. One very important criterion is esthetic — some developments just “feel” right, fitting, and beautiful. Just as in other venues where beauty or esthetics are discussed, taste plays an important role in this, but I think I am not alone in being especially excited when apparently different fields suddenly meet in a new concept, a new understanding. It is often of the sparks of such encounters that our esthetic enjoyment of mathematics is born.
Another important criterion for according merit to some particular piece of mathematics is the extent to which it can be useful in applications; this is the criterion almost exclusively used by nonmathematicians.”

Ingrid Daubechies (1954) Belgian physicist and mathematician

(1995) Wavelets and Other Phase Space Localization Methods. In: Chatterji, S.D. (ed.). Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians. Birkhäuser, Basel. [10.1007/978-3-0348-9078-6_8]

Thinking, Mathematics, Understanding, Beauty

“There is but one way to bring about the triumph of liberty, of justice, and of peace in Europe's international relations, to make civil war impossible between the different peoples who make up the European family; and that is the formation of the United States of Europe.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Reasoned Proposal to the Central Committee of the League for Peace and Freedom (1867)

Family, Peace, Justice, War

“Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Happiness, Health, Family, Peace

“Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Truth

“"The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“'The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.' That's from Emerson, by the way. All I was hoping to do is stretch some goddamn minds.”

Carl Hiaasen book Squeeze Me

Epilogue
Novels, Squeeze Me (2020)

Hope, Idea

“There Is Nothing More Beautiful Than Someone Who Goes Out Of Their Way To Make Life Beautiful For Others”

Alireza Kohany (1993) Musician, Actor, Entrepreneur

Source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Business_In_Simple_Language/aiXfDwAAQBAJ

Beauty, Life, Beauty, Business

“The quickest way to happiness learning to be selfless.”

Macklemore (1983) American rapper from Washington

Source: Song Growing Up

Happiness, Learning

“Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Original detail". p.45
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Life

“Fear, selfishness, greed and a human weakness for seeking the "easy way" have led us to the abyss.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Now or Never
Focus Fourteen

Selfishness, Fear

“Good people do not need law to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

Law, People

“We’re trying to do the same thing and we’ve come a long way. But it gets exhausting having to do this every day, every week. Our male counterparts have not had to fight as much – so sometimes you feel a little exhausted always having to prove yourself and show your worth.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"Alex Morgan: ‘If Fifa start respecting the women’s game more, others will follow’" https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/16/alex-morgan-us-soccer-football-fifa-lyon-women-equality (Janaury 17, 2017)

Fight, Feeling

“A leaf carried away with the stream of water, it can crash along the way, or go on to the darkest parts of the unknown ocean.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Water, Parting

“The only best way to prove that a statue can't provide for you is to ask it for food.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Food

“The best way to learn something new is to banish fanaticism in all of its shapes and forms.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Learning

“There are two ways to live a celibate life. The first is to leave everything as it is and the second is to explore everything, without neglecting anything. Those who experiment a lot have little taste in things.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

Elmer Davis (1890–1958) American politician

As quoted in Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies by Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) p. 64.

People, Idea

“The darkness isn't afraid of coming close to me, my fear of loneliness draws him towards me. Darkness surrounds me and despair takes hold of me. I start to torment my loneliness, and my silence begins to take my life. When I call my happiness darkness always turns happiness way. Darkness is not afraid of me coming close to me, my fear pulls it to me.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Drawing, Silence, Happiness, Loneliness

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Drawing, Silence, Happiness, Loneliness

“It’s a very American thing to build up and break down and come back. It is in its own weird way the heroes journey.”

Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor

Source: "‘Colbert’: Robert Downey Jr. Grateful His “Misbehavior” Years Were Pre-Internet" https://deadline.com/2021/02/robert-downey-jr-stephen-colbert-late-show-avengers-misbehavior-years-were-pre-internet-1234689537/ (8 February 2021)

“I'm not a big guy. I'm not a menacing guy. I'm not an intimidating guy. I may look that way, but just spend two seconds talking to me, and you know that's not who I am - not as a person, as a character. It's not who I intend to be.”

Dave Bautista (1969) American actor and professional wrestler

unsourced

Personality, Guy

“So I kept pulling my punches. And later I realised that was a mistake. Life doesn’t spare the kind of people who I write about, so I felt like it would be dishonest to spare my characters in that way.”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On how she “protected” her characters in her first novel Where the Line Bleeds in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘Black girls are silenced, misunderstood and underestimated'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/11/jesmyn-ward-home-mississippi-living-with-addiction-poverty-racism in The Guardian (2018 May 11)

Life, People

“We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating–lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Chapter 7 Nature

Home, Dependency, World, Nature

“Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: "Forced Emigration," New York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1853.

Housing, Life, Money