Quotes of the Day

1/15/07 "Here is my secret...it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1/16/07 "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it." - the Talmud

1/18/07 To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all –Goethe 1/23/07 State of the Union "The great lie of democracy, its essential paradox, is that democracy is first to be sacrificed when its security is at risk." --Ian McDonald, former British Defence Minister

1/29/07 I do not know what weapons World War III will be fought with. World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein 2/2/07 "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." --Horace Mann 2/7/07 The Second Coming William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

1920

2/20/07 "Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive." Friedrich Nietzsche "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's CREATION." _ Jonathan Larson, RENT

2/23/07 “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” St. Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus, 354-430), 2/27/07 “A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus while keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything that we saw in the thame aspect as the things of Earth. The only true voyage of discovery, the only really rejuvenating experience, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; . . . . “–marcel Proust remembrance of things past [The only true voyage‚ the only bath in the Fountain of Youth‚ would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes‚ to see the universe through the eyes of another‚ of a hundred others‚ to see the hundred universes that each of them sees‚ that each of them is; and this we can do with the spirits of [great men]; with men like these we really fly from star to star]

3/02/07 Queequeg: ... truely to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. — Herman Mellville, in Moby-Dick, Ch. 11 3/05/07 Three things cannot long be hidden; the sun, the moon and the truth. –Buddha You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad. – Aldous Huxley Never never Brave me nor my fury tempt Downy wings but wroth they beat Tempest, even in reason’s seat -Melville 3/14/07 It's always because we love that we are rebellious; it takes a great deal of love to give a damn ~Kenneth Patchen~ 3/29/07 If you are looking for Truth, you better be ready to change your mind. If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people." -Virginia Woolf

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self." --Aristotle “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

-Lincoln

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~ Albert Einstein Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. -Jean Paul Sartre

“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Senator Carl Schurz, (R-NY)

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. -- Dom Hélder Câmara (1909-1999) noli, amabo, verberare lapidem ne perdas manum – Plautus "don't beat your head against a brick wall" -- literally, "please don't beat on a rock, lest you destroy your hand."

Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak... Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.” --Cesar Chavez "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -- Abraham Lincoln The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted – Gandhi Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of nonthought. -- Milan Kundera Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Abraham Lincoln “If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” Edward Hopper Dwight David Eisenhower, the last of our nation's great warrior presidents, said "Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace."

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will" Antonio Gramsci "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." James Baldwin

"I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all." James Baldwin 5/21 "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell 6/12/07 In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. H.L. Mencken The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit. Somerset Maugham "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." ---Ralph Waldo Emerson 6/22/07 "Always do right -- this will gratify some and astonish the rest." Mark Twain 6/26/07 "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." -Jimmy Hendrix "Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." Carl Jung

9/17/07 We find that after years of struggle we do not take a journey, but rather a journey takes us. John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley “clothe my naked villainy / With odd old ends, stol’n forth of Holy Writ, / And seem a saint when most I play the devil” Richard III (I.iii.334–336). Shakespeare 9/24/07 "A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."-Thomas Mann Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why." - Kurt Vonnegut Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." -- Albert Einstein "Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within. Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted." A. Phillip Randolph One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -Plato "You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case." - Ken Kesey "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." Dwight D. Eisnehower My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. I am for peace; But when I speak, they are for war.-Psalms 120-6,7. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." Dr. ML King, from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. "The waging of war, by its nature, is total - but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial." -- Daniel Berrigan 10/4/07 I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center. --Kurt Vonnegut 10/18/07 "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."-- Isaac Asimov.

When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws. Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort 1741-1794, French Writer, Journalist, Playwright Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use. Carlos Castaneda American Anthropologist, Author What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person. Are we not, for most of our lives, marking time? Most of our being is at rest, unlived. In passion, the body and the spirit seek expression outside of self. Passion is all that is other from self. Sex is only interesting when it releases passion. The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so. John Boorman 1933-, British Filmmaker "All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual." - Honore de Balzac "On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale. " - Alexander Pope