no. 211

"Archaeologists have not yet discovered any stage of human existence without art. Even in the half-light before the dawn of humanity we received this gift from Hands we did not manage to discern. Nor have we managed to ask: Why was this gift given to us and what are we to do with it? And all those prophets who are predicting that art is disintegrating, that it has used up all its forms, that it is dying, are mistaken. We are the ones who shall die. And art will remain. The question is whether before we perish we shall understand all its aspects and all its ends."

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, Beauty Will Save the World

via

no. 210

“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.”

P.J. O’Rourke

no. 209

"A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, it is an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history."

Naomi Wolf

via

no.208

via

no. 207

"Women feel more guilt than men, not because of some weird chromosomal issue but because they have a history of being blamed for other people’s behavior. You get hit, you must have annoyed someone; you get raped, you must have excited someone; your kid is a junkie, you must have brought him up wrong."

Germaine Greer, Guilt Poisons Women

via

no. 206

"It all makes sense now. Gay marriage and marijuana are being legalized at the same time.
Leviticus 20:13 says if a man lays with another man, he should be stoned.
We were just misinterpreting it."

tctisi

via

no. 205

"The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming."

Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things

via

no. 204

via

no. 203

"If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

Kurt Vonnegut

no. 202

“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed”.

Albert Einstein

(well, sorta)

no. 201

"Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

George Carlin

no. 200

"If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness."

A phrase that was carved on the walls of a concentration camp cell during WWII by a Jewish prisoner

no. 199

"Blaming teachers for education is like blaming policemen for crime."

me

no. 198

Your god is Old. He killed children
in Egypt, murdered lovers in the night,
swept sinners dead in a righteous wave.
He told Eve she would die
if she ate the apple, knowing
that he had already planted the seed
of the tree of Knowledge inside her.
He lied. He stole. He coveted.
Just because you create something,
doesn’t make it yours.

I will not be Job. If god tries
to tear down my house, I will
not weep. I will build it up again myself,
with my own hands.
That god is not my god. I am New.
I will walk with children.
I will love and learn to swim.
I will eat apples and drink coffee
and build towers.
I will wear flowers
from that old tree
in my hair.

whatladybird

via

no. 197

"The entirety of Dallas's economy is based off of booze, boobs and jesus. When one fails*, it's like hearing that gravity stopped."

Peejee in Randy Milholland's Something Positive.



* referring to a business based on one of the three.

no. 196

"You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'."

Erin McKean, You Don’t Have to Be Pretty

via

no. 195

"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."

Assata Shakur

no. 194

"Let me take a moment aside to discuss the elephant in the room here: Nuclear Power. I know, big bad scary right? For all the newly dredged fears and misinformed scare mongering, nuclear power is still the safest energy source we have. Per terrawatt-hour it has had less deaths associated with it than any other form of energy. Mind boggling, I know. But you have to look at the big picture. Think of the dangers of working in coal mines or from air pollution produced. Coal power is by-far the worst energy source out there as far as related deaths go.

You would need 25 meltdowns a year to match it. That’s statistics, baby."

Maki

no.193

"Think about it, the conditions are perfect. You have the attention of millions of people, you have your liberal, atheist opponent in front of you, and your goal is to make them all rage, while making your oafish, unimaginative supporters hoot and holler behind you. Bill O’Reilly unleashed the perfect storm of internet trolldom. He didn’t just invoke the god of the gaps. He won it. He won God of the Gaps. Don’t ask me how. You can’t explain that."

Maki, refering to a interview of David Silverman by Bill O'Reilly.

Go to the page, read the comic, watch the video the quote is about.

But really, if you've ever watched much Bill O'Reilly, you know exactly what he's talking about

no. 192

"If a universe formed in the forest, and its conditions weren’t right to create a self-important monkey, did it ever exist at all?"

Maki