no. 1166

 “That summer of 1816, a group of out-of-work miners set out to walk from Bilston to London—a distance of 125 miles. They had a petition for the prince regent, an accounting of their hardships. They carried signs—Willing to Work, but None of Us to Beg—and carts of coal, which they planned to present to the prince. They were slow and steady. They were orderly and unthreatening. But they were stopped. They had to be stopped. The government would prefer not to admit that there were hardships, but it would never admit that the prince might be responsible for any. At the edges of London, the procession was met by the police. There was no possible way the marchers could meet with the prince, the authorities said. But they would buy the carts of coal and they would buy beer for all the marchers. There would be no better offer. The lesson was clear. Being polite got you nowhere.”

Nicholas Day, from his book A World Without Summer 

no. 1165

“The idea that some people were better than others at interpreting things—that was a new concept. It’s the idea of expertise, and the whole notion of expertise was still being worked out. William Herschel was the great astronomer of the day, a deeply learned man, and yet his views about sunspots were not taken much more seriously than the views of the man who’d heard something from somebody who’d heard something from somebody who’d heard that the sun was going out the day after tomorrow. All the evidence from the Tambora years didn’t add up to anything. It just inspired wild guesses about earthquakes and lightning rods and rice paddies. This is the fate of a world without the idea of expertise, a world without any sense of whom to trust. In that world, any story was a relief. It’s not a surprise that people migrated from explanation to explanation to explanation. Any story was better than nothing at all.”

Nicholas Day, from his book A World Without Summer 

no. 1164

 You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is that it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don’t seem to have the knack.”

Terry Pratchett from the novel “Guards! Guards!”

no. 1163

 “I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people,” said the man. “You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.” He waved his thin hand toward the city and walked over to the window. “A great rolling sea of evil,” he said, almost proprietorially. “Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much deeper in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end. Amazing!” He slapped Vimes good-naturedly on the back. “Down there,” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.“

Terry Pratchett, from the novel “Guards! Guards!”

no. 1162

 “All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”

— Bertrand Russell, The Science to Save Us from Science, The New York Times (19 March 1950)

no. 1161

 There's a boy in you about three 

Years old who hasn't learned a thing for thirty Thousand years. Sometimes it's a girl.

This child had to make up its mind

How to save you from death. He said things like:

"Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk."

You live with this child, but you don't know it.

You're in the office, yes, but live with this boy At night. He's uninformed, but he does want To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy You survived a lot. He's got six big ideas.

Five don't work. Right now he's repeating them to you.

Robert Bly, 'One Source of Bad Information’

no. 1160

 “And the pity of it was that such hate and such intolerance would never have been born, could never have existed, had it not been for men like Finn—the bigots and the egomaniacs; the harsh, stern Puritans; the little men who felt the need of power to lift them from their smallness.”

Clifford Simak in “Time Is The Simplest Thing”

no. 1159

 "You may never be happy. So you just have to dance, dance so well that you leave everyone speechless."

Haruki Murakami 

no. 1158

Toad sat on the edge of his bed. “Blah,” said Toad. “I feel down in the dumps.” 

“Why?” asked Frog. 

“I am thinking about tomorrow,” said Toad. 

from Frog and Toad bot (frogandtoadbot@bsky.social.net)

no. 1157

  “If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you should feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”

— Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943) Image: Bertrand Russell on the grounds of his home at Penrhyndeudreath, Gwynedd, United Kingdom, 3 March 1965.

no. 1156

 "Money is like manure, it's not worth a thing unless its spread around encouraging young things to grow"

 quote from Hello Dolly

no. 1155

 Gently, as from a distance, the magic tones of Mozart's music sound upon my ears. Thus do such sweet impressions, passing into our souls, work beneficently in our innermost beings.

A diary entry by Schubert for 13th June 1816.

no. 1154

 

Efu Nyaki 

no. 1153

 

no. 1152

 The most vocal Christians never mention the Beatitudes. They demand the 10 Commandments be posted in public buildings. That's Moses; not Jesus. No one demands the Beatitudes be posted anywhere. Blessed are the merciful in a courtroom? Blessed are the peacemakers in the Pentagon? 

 Kurt Vonnegut

no. 1151

 “Hey. What do you think ASAP means?”

 “After some additional procrastination.”

from the book All Fun and Games, by Honor Raconteur

no. 1150

 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

no. 1149

 The only time you look in your neighbour's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbour's bowl to see if you have as much as them. 

Louis C.K

no. 1148

 

no. 1147