My cousin
who is young and angry
tells me at this point
she is waiting for the crash,
she is hoping for the crash,
she can only see a better world
built on the wreckage of this one,
so sympathetically
I try to remind her
that many of us
will be buried in that wreckage.
Plague Poems by @plaguepoems.bsky.social
“The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he.”
Karl Kraus (1874-1936), journalist, critic and satirist
"The true horror of existence is not the fear of death, but the fear of life. It is the fear of waking up each day to face the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same pain. It is the fear that nothing will ever change, that you are trapped in a cycle of suffering that you cannot escape. And in that fear, there is a desperation, a longing for something, anything, to break the monotony, to bring meaning to the endless repetition of days."
Albert Camus, The Fall
“I will say this until I die: You long for the "good old days" because you were too stupid to understand what was actually going on back then.“
Dennis Detwiller @drgonzo123.bsky.social
“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison DBW Vol 8
"Seldom in recent times, it seems, has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain, to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power. In view of this, it is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied, more than ever before, by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record; in short, by typical collaborators"
Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless”
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
- Haile Selassie I
Harpo Marx Family Rules
1. Life has been created for you to enjoy, but you won't enjoy it unless you pay for it with some good, hard work. This is one price that will never be marked down.
2. You can work at whatever you want to as long as you do it as well as you can and clean up afterwards and you're at the table at mealtime and in bed at bedtime.
3. Respect what the others do. Respect Dad's harp, Mom's paints, Billy's piano, (son) Alex's set of tools, (son) Jimmy's designs, and Minnie's menagerie.
4. If anything makes you sore, come out with it. Maybe the rest of us are itching for a fight, too.
5. If anything strikes you as funny, out with that, too. Let's all the rest of us have a laugh.
6. If you have an impulse to do something that you're not sure is right, go ahead and do it. Take a chance. Chances are, if you don't you'll regret it - unless you break the rules about mealtime and bedtime, in which case you'll sure as hell regret it.
7. If it's a question of whether to do what's fun or what is supposed to be good for you, and nobody is hurt whichever you do, always do what's fun.
8. If things get too much for you and you feel the whole world's against you, go stand on your head. If you can think of anything crazier to do, do it.
9. Don't worry about what other people think. The only person in the world important enough to conform to is yourself.
10. Anybody who mistreats a pet or breaks a pool cue is docked a month's pay.
“The opposite of diversity is uniformity. The opposite of equity is inequity. The opposition of inclusion is exclusion.”
@petebuttugieg.bsky.social
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
P. J. O'Rourke
“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
Arthur C. Clarke
