"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
Winston Churchill
"Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about."
Mark Twain
“Police are to control your people through laws. The military is to control your enemies. When the military becomes the police, your own people become the enemy. That never ends well.”
“The next time someone says ‘Not everything's about you’ ask yourself the last time they allowed ANYTHING to be about you. If you can't think of a single time... it's a tactic to shut you up and make everything about them.”
Nicole Filippone @sensorystories.bsky.social
“Life hack: there is no way to make people love you by bombing them, and if they did love you bombing them will fix that.
Because, you see, there's no such thing as an attack on someone's life so legitimate that they say ‘yes, I had that coming, thank you, father.’”
@pymundgeneology.com
“I have this private schema that I have never offered up for scrutiny that biology is information contained in life, culture is information created by life, and technology is information contained in things created by life.”
Hank Green
“Socrates said, ‘The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.’ He wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.
A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”
Ursula K. Le Guin
“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
Chuck Palahniuk
