no. 762

“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

no. 761

 “Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt,” 

Christopher Hitchens. 

no. 760

 Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.

But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said."

We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.

- Ira Byock.

no. 759

“In a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistaken and terrible beauty; in the rites of the moneychangers, where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men's acts, even the terrible became banal.”

Ursula K. LeGuin

no. 758

 “It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed.”

Ursula K. LeGuin

no. 757

 “ Dictatorships murder poets because poets convey the feeling of a people.”

Sarah Kendzior

no. 756

“When I was in college, I studied Ancient Greek for one year, a consequence of reading too much Donna Tartt in high school. While seemingly impractical, studying Ancient Greek was a solid move for someone who writes in English. I started breaking down words into parts I recognized from ancient roots, especially in politics, where kratos – power, or rule – would appear. Autocracy: rule by one man. Kleptocracy: rule by thieves.

Democracy: rule by the people.

Whenever I hear Americans proclaim that democracy is either dead or eternal (it is often the same politicians speaking in extremes, usually while they are asking you for money), I return to the root: the power of the people.

I do not instinctively reject the word “democracy” because it was not imposed on me by a foreign country. It is the power to which I am entitled but never received. Democracy was never fully realized in the United States and has been stripped away even more over my lifetime.

But I feel the word in my soul in a way that is natural – the way you feel a poem.”

Sarah Kendzior, Out of Words

no. 755

“Demokratiya had become cheap and cruel: a buzzword the government sells with a sneer as the mafia state shakes you down; a lure NGOs peddle as they promise to solve your problems without hearing what they are.  Demokratiya was a sign that someone did not have your back unless they were painting a target on it. The word is still viewed that way in many states of the former Soviet Union that proclaimed themselves “democracies” while remaining dictatorships.”

Sarah Kendzior, Out of Words, describing how many people in former Soviet states (and probably others) feel about Western preaching about democracy. 

no. 754

“We live in a world where funerals are more important than death, marriage is more important than love and looks are more important than the soul.

We live in a packaging culture that despises content. "

Jodie foster

no. 753

“There's a longstanding joke to the effect that you can shut down any discussion of the merits of a libertarian exit by asking three questions about the brave new world:

I. Whether you can sell your organs;

II. Whether you can sell yourself into slavery; and

III. Whether there is any age of consent.”

Cory Doctorow 

no. 752

“The law, in its majestic equality, equally forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

Anatole France

no. 751

 

no. 750

 Not a quote, but almost

via GIPHY

no. 749

 “ People who say "this isn't the time for context" want you to be misinformed. Context is everything. Context is the difference between a stabbing and a surgery, between revenge and justice, between oppression and protection. Insist on context and be curious.”

@iyad_elbaghdadi

no. 478

 “Any time a oppressed people is trampled on by the boot of fascism, there will be those who say 'never again' and those who demand their turn with the boot.”

@VanillaWayfarer

no. 747

 Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.

Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?

Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?

Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.

Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

from the show M*A*S*H

no. 476

 “The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

no. 745

 

“There is no other child who is this one. There is no other nurse who is this one. There is no other hand eye tooth bone. There is no other sibling, no other tree. The rulers kill the world and say their stupid words. Their sounds waste breath and with their lives they kill life.”

@arcelisxgirmay

no. 744

 

"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book." 

Cicero (43 BCE)

no. 743

 "Freedom stretches only as far as the limits of our consciousness."  

Carl Jung

no. 742

 “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” 

Leon Trotsky

no. 741

"Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy"..." 

- God

no. 740

 

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured.”

 — Winston Churchill

no. 739

 "The demagogue is a character who repeats in human history and history  shows that he can’t be reasoned with, or appeased, or coopted. He must  be defeated, over and over, until the people who follow him give up on  illiberalism and return to civilized society."

  @JVLast

no. 738

Not sure how I feel about this, but I think it can’t hurt to repeat it.

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the  planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” 

- Mark Twain, published in 1899

no. 737

“Watch out for each other. Love everyone and forgive everyone, including yourself. Forgive your anger. Forgive your guilt. Your shame. Your sadness. Embrace and open up your love, your joy, your truth, and most especially your heart.”

– Jim Henson

no. 736

 

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

  Lenin

no. 735

 

“I look at the world, at the forests and the mountains here, the sky, and it's all right, as it should be. But we aren't. People aren't. We're wrong. We do wrong. No animal does wrong. How could they? But we can, and we do. And we never stop.”

Ursula K LeGuin

no. 734

 "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." 

Upton Sinclair

no. 733

 “There is no death for an otter, only life to the end.”

Ursula K Le Guin

no. 732

 

“The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.”

Ursula K LeGuin

no. 731

 

“To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws.”

Ursula K LeGuin

no. 730

 

“How much time do you want, for your progress?”

James Baldwin

no. 729

 

no. 728

 Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on... So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything... The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all... We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors...but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal... Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. 

Hunter S. Thompson

(Book: Letters of Note)

no. 727

 

"I lived when simply waiting was a large part of ordinary life: when we waited, gathered around a crackling radio, to hear the infinitely far-away voice of the king of England… I live now when we fuss if our computer can’t bring us everything we want instantly. We deny time. 

We don’t want to do anything with it, we want to erase it, deny that it passes. What is time in cyberspace? And if you deny time you deny space. After all, it’s a continuum—which separates us. 

So we talk on a cell phone to people in Indiana while jogging on the beach without seeing the beach, and gather on social media into huge separation-denying disembodied groups while ignoring the people around us.

​I find this virtual existence weird, and as a way of life, absurd. This could be because I am eighty-four years old. It could also be because it is weird, an absurd way to live."

~ Ursula K. LeGuin, Interview by Heather Davis