no. 474

"the truth is like poetry, and most people fucking hate poetry"

Unknown

no. 464

"Screw soccer, ignorance is the official sport of humanity"

from Jeph Jacques' comic "Questionable Content".

no. 445

"We’re haunted by terrible fears and paranoias. We’re frightened beings. When people are afraid, fear takes over and brings out all kind of irrationality. So, yes, we’re constantly striving to be rational, but we’re not wholly rational beings."

Karen Armstrong

no. 439

from Extra Fabulous Comics

no. 437

George Carlin, from the film Life is Worth Losing

Cartoon by Gavin Aung Than, of Zen Pencils, a wonderful site that matches Gavin's drawings with wonderful quotes, and which beats hell out of my puny efforts here.

no. 428

Punditry is an industry built on confirmation bias. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter - These people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing worldviews. If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn't, you hate them. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.

David McRaney, discussing confirmation bias in his book, You Are Not So Smart (p28)

no. 409

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

no. 404

"The people most enthusiastic about rules are the ones who gain power through them."

me

no. 401

“Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.”

Abba Eban, an Israeli politician and diplomat




(citation)

no. 399

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

Clarence Darrow

no. 391

“Can anything be salvaged from all this self-sabotage?”

John Tottenham

no. 377

"I see the glass half full…

but of poison."

Woody Allen

no. 375

What men mean when they talk about their “crazy” ex-girlfriend is often that she was someone who cried a lot, or texted too often, or had an eating disorder, or wanted too much/too little sex, or generally felt anything beyond the realm of emotionally undemanding agreement. That does not make these women crazy. That makes those women human beings, who have flaws, and emotional weak spots. However, deciding that any behavior that he does not like must be insane– well, that does make a man a jerk.

And when men do this on a regular basis, remember that, if you are a woman, you are not the exception. You are not so cool and fabulous and levelheaded that they will totally get where you are coming from when you show emotions other than “pleasant agreement.”

When men say “most women are crazy, but not you, you’re so cool” the subtext is not, “I love you, be the mother to my children.” The subtext is “do not step out of line, here.” If you get close enough to the men who say things like this, eventually, you will do something that they do not find pleasant. They will decide you are crazy, because this is something they have already decided about women in general.

Lady, You Really Aren’t “Crazy”


via

no. 371

"I interviewed a young anthropologist working with women in Mali, a country in Africa where women go around with bare breasts. They’re always feeding their babies. And when she told them that in our culture men are fascinated with breasts there was an instant of shock. The women burst out laughing. They laughed so hard, they fell on the floor.

They said, “You mean, men act like babies?”"

Carolyn Latteier, Breasts, the women’s perspective on an American obsession

via

no. 363

Susan Sontag on literature and freedom.

via

no. 356

"We are homesick most for the places we have never known."

Carson McCullers

via

no. 307

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Groucho Marx

via

no. 303

no. 302

"The problem w/ the Zimmerman verdict isn’t that he got away with murder. It’s that even in 2013, citizens of society refuse to be humble, to be teachable, to be pliable. Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Society has consistently fallen short of truly being human. Coercion replaces compassion; fear replaces love; complacency replaces being proactive. People have resolved that 'this is just the way it is', shrug their shoulders, and move on with the life, leaving the grieving families of displaced, misplaced, replaced, and dead children in the wake, then they wonder why 'kids these days' never learn. Who’s teaching them to be unteachable? Who’s teaching them to be passive and aggressive in the wrong areas of life? Who’s teaching them that murder is okay, sex tapes are the norm and will make you a lot of money, and selling your soul for a reality show is the ultimate goal in life? Who’s teaching them that more time & money are spent on trying to be pretty, in-shape, attractive, and/or appealing to the masses, rather than teaching them humility, generosity, compassion, and love? A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve."

iv

via

no. 292

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

via