“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.”
Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist
Source: The Complete Persepolis
Hymn
“It's fear that makes us lose our conscience. It's also what transforms us into cowards.”
Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist
Source: The Complete Persepolis
Arthur Scargill (1938) British trade unionist
Speech in Yorkshire (15 March 1982), quoted in Paul Routledge, "Scargill urges strike against Tebbit Bill", The Times (16 March 1982), p. 2
Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator
Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)
Context: I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature. I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist. If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I'm high I know about this disbelief. And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously. I say "Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!" I try to show that my mind is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs. Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it's as if two people are reading each other's minds.
Glacier Kwong (1996) Hong Kong human rights activist
What Could Possibly Go Right?: Episode 38 Glacier Kwong https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-05-04/what-could-possibly-go-right-episode-38/ (4 May 2021)
Lester Grinspoon (1928–2020) American physician
Source: Marihuana Reconsidered
Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru
Amritanandamayi's Address Upon Receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the State University of New York (2010)
Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela
Hugo Chávez during his television/radio show ¡Aló Presidente! on October 2, 2005.
2005
Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …
Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.
I have no doubt that, if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security.
To that end, we must ensure — absolutely — that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons.
We must see to it that nuclear-weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament.
And we must put in place a security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director
Source: The Theatre and Its Double (1938, translated 1958), Ch. 6
“If we train our conscience, it kisses us while it hurts”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist