The Great Quotes thread

[Eva2]

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
--Henry David Thoreau

[Tintin]

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”

-Kurt Vonnegut

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

"Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."
~ John Wooden

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quotationof.com%2Fimages%2Fh-p-lovecrafts-quotes-8.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=dde7a4a751aa0a296b7df6ecc1ea14ca4630be3d6cdaa4ce02862b0e72060eb0&ipo=images

and continues . . .

"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of a black sea of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of disassociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

- The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

[Raskolnikov]

"I may have some objective knowledge one day, or may perhaps have had it in the past when I happened to light on passages that explained things. But I have forgotten it all; for though I am a man of some reading, I am one who retains nothing."

"Convention forbids us to express in words things that are lawful and natural; and we obey it. Reason forbids us to do what is unlawful or wicked, and no one obeys it."

Montaigne

[edina]

“Eternity isn't some later time.
Eternity isn’t a long time.
Eternity has nothing to do with time.
Eternity is the dimension of here and now which thinking in time cuts out.
. . .
The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.”
Joseph Campbel (https://youtu.be/qX8j9TE7P38?si=Hge2is4GEuZXiwMk)l, The Power of Myth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aee5DJ9DSwU&t=1560s)

[RMF808]

Flowers are for the bees,
Not for the MEs,
Keep them off of your table,
Let nature be as its able

-RMF808

[Eva2]

'So now we arrive at the late twentieth century, nuclear arsenals fully in hand. We have made since the fifteenth century a demonic pact with matter that has allowed us great insight into the destructive properties of matter, made us handmaiden to the devil, and yet we are still completely dark about our own motivations, how to educate our children, how to put in place a set of values that don’t loot the future. And all of these problems appear to be getting worse. So I don’t know—well, my response to this is to advocate the only thing that I think will work. But it’s not a political position, because a political position always implies willingness to compromise and negotiate with the other side.
We’re at the end of a process—call it 2,000, call it 5,000; you know, choose your date—but a long process of denial of human nature, first, and then war against human nature. And it goes so deep into our culture that we don’t even know where the basement level is. I mean, for instance, to my mind, monotheism—which is the great intellectual edifice of the West, it touches the three major religions of the West that have developed in a continuous strain since Abraham—monotheism is the institutionalizing of this egocentric model. And it has a certain philosophical appeal—one god, you know? All roads lead to Rome. You can trace everything back to the source, the Urquelle. But that anal-retentive appeal in itself takes place within a context of values of male dominance, print-created linearity, uniformity, so forth and so on.
And I think what we have to get into is real permission for sloppiness, for loose-endedness, for the abandonment of any myth of closure—that there is no closure. There are models and there are questions, but all models are provisional. And anybody who says they have answers is highly, highly suspect. Too many people claim answers. What’s being claimed here is a technique, and then you figure out your own questions and your own answers. And it’s different for everybody. There really is no ideology associated with psychedelics. I mean, if you look at the people who’ve been involved with it, they’ve said completely different things, and contradictory. And some are rationalists and behaviourists to this day, and others are spiritual visionaries, hierarchical shamanic types.
The main thing is to reclaim the experience as the first step toward being politically empowered in order to act. In other words: we’re in—and I indicated this last night, although more gently—that we’re in a state of enforced infantilism about the capacity of our minds; that the culture we are living in is an infantile culture. Now, we look back at the Victorians putting pants on the piano legs, and we just shake our heads and say: “Those poor, misguided people.” Well, but that’s only four generations ago. We have similar weirdness going on in our own culture, but about the mind. I mean, we look askance at the mind in the same way that a Victorian nanny is uncomfortable in the presence of bare furniture: we fear it, we don’t want to look at it. And, to my mind, most of the techniques that come out of the New Age are based on a guaranteed lack of success. That’s what they offer. Because the last thing anybody wants is real change, because real change is uncontrolled change.'
Terence McKenna

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

[Eva2]

Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god..
Jean Rostand ..

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

"A day without laughter is a day wasted."
~ Charlie Chaplin

[Raskolnikov]

https://www.yourselfquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/Nikola-Tesla-Quotes-On-Science.jpg

[Eva2]

The medicine of the future will be music and sound.
~Edgar Cayce

[Mari]

“I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Michi]

123456
53722

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/yh0sHfA.jpeg

[Raskolnikov]

https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/5471775-Benny-Hill-Quote-Girls-are-like-pianos-When-they-re-not-upright.jpg

[Raskolnikov]

Too much? Sorry, love Benny Hill.

[Raskolnikov]

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/1e/6a/9c/1e6a9c7fc5591e6191046886ec730ec4.jpg

[Michi]

123456
53772

[Raskolnikov]

https://spiritualcleansing.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/The-mind-is-its-own-place-and-in-itself-can-make-a-heaven-of-hell-a-hell-of-heaven...-400x416.jpg

[Eva2]

Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.

Henry Thoreau

[Bill Ryan]

Copying this from Sue's post (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?114847-VC-An-intro-thread-to-Vaxx-Concerns&p=1425166&viewfull=1#post1425166) back in 2021, when covid was starting to frighten everyone. The source is here (https://unz.com/print/Century-1899dec-00317/), published in 1899.

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=46633&d=1619671289

Transcribed to text:

FEAR AND DEATH
(AN ARAB LEGEND)
BY R. R. BOWKER

The Spirit of the Plague entered the gate.
One, watching, asked, "How many wilt thou slay?"
"A thousand," spake the Spirit, "is my quest."
The Plague made end. The Spirit left the gate.
The watcher cried, " Ten thousand didst thou slay."
"Nay, one," the Spirit said; "Fear killed the rest."

[Raskolnikov]

https://images7.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED785/66eb17fc97f51.webp

[kfm27917]

Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world - few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds - justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to a whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.

- The Vampire Lestat, pp. 332-333, Anne Rice

[HopSan]

1. A man shows his character
in the way in which he deals with trifles - for then he is off his guard.

2. To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

3. A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man.

-- Schopenhauer

[kfm27917]

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/219786.Bertrand_de_Jouvenel?page=2

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."
~ Plutarch

[rgray222]

https://i.redd.it/v60at02acpw81.png

[Raskolnikov]

"Watch every man and see whether, hiding hatred in his heart, he speaks with friendly countenance, and his tongue rings with double speech from a dark soul."

“He (Pisistratus) found more credit when he flattered the people than I when I told them the truth. I . . . told the people that I was wiser than those who did not see that Pisistratus was aiming at tyranny, and more courageous than those who shrank from resisting him. They, however, denounced Solon as mad.”

"And at last I protested: 'My country, I, Solon, am ready to defend thee by word and deed; but some of my countrymen think me mad. Wherefore I will go forth out of their midst as the sole opponent of Pisistratus; and let them, if they like, become his bodyguard.’ For you must know, my friend, that he was beyond measure ambitious to be tyrant. He began by being a popular leader; his next step was to inflict wounds on himself and appear before the court of the Heliaea, crying out that these wounds had been inflicted by his enemies; and he requested them to give him a guard of 400 young men. And the people without listening to me granted him the men, who were armed with clubs. And after that he destroyed the democracy. It was in vain that I sought to free the poor amongst the Athenians from their condition of serfdom, if now they are all the slaves of one master, Pisistratus.”

Solon

[edina]

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through
you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this
expression is unique.
—MARTHA GRAHAM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham), DANCER AND CHOREOGRAPHER
(Quoted in Your Brain on Art (https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/63690396bd6f070c06e21870/659d0d5e5abc0fb8655c2520_Cover-Bestseller-Trans.gif))

[Bluegreen]

“To finish first, first you must finish.”

– Dick Trickle

[Eva2]

"The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly. It's not the shattering itself that breaks you—it’s the silence that follows, the quiet space where you realize there’s nothing left to salvage. And in that moment, you know that you’ll never be the same again. You’ll build something new, perhaps, but it will never be what you lost."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

[RMF808]

Be not as you are, be as you can be.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Whether you think you can, or you can’t, you’re usually right

[Eva2]

'We have always been caught up in the anticipation of the unspeakable. The human adventure has always been a flirtation with these gigantic forces in an unseen dimension. This is what sets our religions going, this is what creates gurus and messiahs and scientific breakthroughs, it's that somehow we are in resonance with something much larger than ourselves, something which you could call the great attractor, the transcendental object at the end of time, the Gaian mind, whatever it is, we, out of all of nature, seem to have a special relationship to it and seem to be somehow both under its care and somehow involved in the manifesting of it in 3-dimensional space. It's that as we make our way across the historical landscape toward the sensed presence of this transcendental other, so it is making its way toward us through the content of dreams, psychedelic experiences, the careers of spiritually advanced people, -- the idea being that history, which is a state of extreme instability and disequilibrium which only lasts 15 or 20 thousand years, that history is about to be transformed or ended, that the factors that shaped history -- phonetic alphabets, male dominance, materialism, scientific method, empiricism -- these factors are about to be made obsolete by discoveries in the human and natural realm.'
Terence McKenna

[kfm27917]

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2f8649fa-7a9d-40ef-8832-d49a375b55f6_700x280.png

[Tintin]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYuU80qXEAA783K?format=jpg&name=medium

[Bill Ryan]

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

Hosea 8:7

[Vicus]

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

Hosea 8:7



This apply perfect to the colonial West and the Messianic Israhell...

[kfm27917]

“Everything that humans are doing now – gathering, analyzing and processing data – will be done by AI. Ten years from now, consciousness (chitta) will be valued over knowledge. This is the time human beings can focus on consciousness.”

– Indian spiritual teacher Sadhguru

[kfm27917]

“If Russia fails, all bets are off for the 21st century. And if Russia succeeds as a nation-state in the family of nations, it will owe much of that success to one man, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.” – Time magazine, “Putin Man of the Year” in 2007

[kfm27917]

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” – Max Planck

[Bill Ryan]

Genius sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.


Charles de Gaulle

[Bill Ryan]

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr

[Eva2]

We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos, the right moment, for a ‘metamorphosis of the gods’, of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing’
-Carl Jung.

[Eva2]

https://scontent.fcxh3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/462147963_9290039377689048_6767373707144919366_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=agTN_Nx5KFsQ7kNvgHQXWVq&_nc_ht=scontent.fcxh3-1.fna&_nc_gid=AE4RCYGM_HXj--Q3GQ1Rs1N&oh=00_AYAACw9iJoWyOM0_c44hK3muKkb2oBggP2X-SKfvqfEPdw&oe=67079F60

[Raskolnikov]

https://images7.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED357/67018adc786b3.webp

[rgray222]

I was never much of a Michael J. Fox fan until I heard him say this.

"Optimism is sustainable"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kuT6zm5G-c?feature=shared

[Raskolnikov]

"The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it."

Sartre

[Vicus]

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.

- John Lennon

( ...and then those insane/maniacs kill him) :candle:

[justntime2learn]

"Sometimes something happens and you find that all the people you knew are like nothing and someone you never saw before will reach out a hand to help." ~ Harold Robbins

[kfm27917]

George Bernard Shaw once said “a reasonable man adjusts himself to the world. An unreasonable man expects the world to adjust itself to him.
Therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable people.”

[Vicus]

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting. :coffee:

- Edmund Burke

[Frankie Pancakes]

"If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you."

-Groucho Marx

[Raskolnikov]

"No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine."

William Blum (Former U.S. State Department employee)

[Eva2]

"Only he who has experienced the power of extremes finds true balance."
—Davante Yara
“The ALCHEMICAL OPUS is dangerous. Right at the beginning you meet the ‘dragon’, the chthonic spirit, the ‘devil’ the ‘blackness’, the NIGREDO and this encounter produces suffering.... the soul finds itself in the throes of melancholy…
In the language of the alchemists matter suffers until the NIGREDO disappears, when the ‘dawn’ (Aurora) will be announced by the ‘peacock’s tail’ (Cauda Pavonis) and a new day will break, the LEUCOSIS or ALBEDO…
But in this this state of whiteness one does not live.. to make it come alive it must have ‘blood’, ..what the alchemists call the RUBEDO, the ‘redness’ of life. Blood alone can reanimate a glorious state of consciousness in which the last trace of blackness is dissolved”
Carl Jung

Art: Nightmare or salvation, nothingness or existence
Vyacheslav Belov

https://scontent.fcxh3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/464383395_9423405467685771_1919734017583725457_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=dOil_cKq-N0Q7kNvgEmp_Fz&_nc_ht=scontent.fcxh3-1.fna&_nc_gid=AoLmrmr4HlbWlV8nsnOtXLa&oh=00_AYAdbjUP0rJw_Q5kMK9Y7nTCuea72SxIBV3kJqSK3o9fZA&oe=6720B371

[Vicus]

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.

- Erich Fromm

[Bill Ryan]

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1942
Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in 1945 at the concentration camp in Flossenbürg, when he was aged 39.

[Bruce G Charlton]

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1942
Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in 1945 at the concentration camp in Flossenbürg, when he was aged 39.


Actually, I completely disagree!

I would say almost the opposite is true: that stupidity is much less dangerous than malice - so long as the stupid are genuinely well-motivated, they will stumble towards right action.

But malice (i.e. evil) is Not self-correcting, but rather (all too often) malice feeds upon itself, and increases without specific limit.

[Johnnycomelately]

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1942
Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in 1945 at the concentration camp in Flossenbürg, when he was aged 39.


Actually, I completely disagree!

I would say almost the opposite is true: that stupidity is much less dangerous than malice - so long as the stupid are genuinely well-motivated, they will stumble towards right action.

But malice (i.e. evil) is not self-correcting, but rather (all too often) malice feeds upon itself, and increases without specific limit.

I’m with Bruce here, mostly. Because malice thinks it won’t come to grief, has no broader context for self awareness, operates by jumping over walls.

But competance is def a thing or not, as Bill’s mention of stupidity points out.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFWFhTFohk

[HopSan]

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 1942
Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in 1945 at the concentration camp in Flossenbürg, when he was aged 39.


Actually, I completely disagree!

I would say almost the opposite is true: that stupidity is much less dangerous than malice - so long as the stupid are genuinely well-motivated, they will stumble towards right action.

But malice (i.e. evil) is not self-correcting, but rather (all too often) malice feeds upon itself, and increases without specific limit.

I’m with Bruce here, mostly. Because malice thinks it won’t come to grief, has no broader context for self awareness, operates by jumping over walls.

But competance is def a thing or not, as Bill’s mention of stupidity points out.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFWFhTFohk


Bill, BGC, Johnny,

A really interesting theme!
Crux, as I see it:

Is a prisoner always a 'victim' -- and so truthful, right and honest?

[rgray222]

After Biden called Trump supporters garbage (https://youtu.be/EMF51QjvvoI?feature=shared).


You can't lead Americans if you don't love Americans."
Donald J. Trump

[gord]

“All these investigations, the thorough research on the Stasi structures, the methods they used and are still using, all that will fall into the wrong hands. These structures will be painstakingly examined – to copy them.

They will be adapted a bit so that they’ll work in a free Western society. The dissidents won’t necessarily be arrested. There are finer possibilities to neutralize someone. But the secret prohibitions, the surveillance, the suspicions, the fear, the isolation and ostracisms, the branding and censoring of those who won’t go along – that will come back, believe me.

Institutions will be created that will work far more effectively, in a far more sophisticated way than the Stasi. Also the permanent lying will come back, the disinformation, the fog in which everything loses its form.”

-East German dissident Bärbel Bohley

[Paul D.]

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

[Raskolnikov]

https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/quote-ron-paul-most-history-ruled-tyrants-freedom-new-socialism.jpg?w=535&ssl=1

[Vicus]

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

[rgray222]

When we destroy nature we diminish our capacity to sense the divine.
RFK jr.

[Bill Ryan]

An election is not a popularity contest, or an award for showmanship. If you want to fulfill your duty as a citizen, then you need to become an informed voter. And if you are not informed, then the most patriotic thing you can do on election day is stay home. Otherwise your vote, based on whims or emotions, is playing Russian roulette with the fate of this nation.


Thomas Sowell: economist, social philosopher and political commentator, now aged 94

[Jamie]

"When Debate is lost, Slander becomes the tool of the loser" - Socrates

Lots of debate whether Socrates is the originator of this saying, but regardless a true saying none the less.

[Eva2]

"I couldn't live a week without a private library--indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1,500 or so books I possess." "From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent."
~ HP Lovecraft

Looking back at the twentieth century, we can certainly see tremendous progress in all fields of technology. Advancement in this sphere of our human lives, however, has been achieved at the cost of a gradual loss of the instinctual, holistic knowledge that has guided and protected life on Earth for great spans of time.
•
But it would be wrong to nourish a desire for a return to the “good old days.” Fortunately, they cannot be retrieved. New ways of tapping this knowledge must be found while retaining the accomplishments of our scientifically trained intelligence. In order to focus with our sharpened intellect on the physical, material side of nature, we have had to neglect the dimension that constitutes the underlying cause and support of our physical world: the spiritual world.
•
Whether we acknowledge that world or not, the fact that we are confronted with an avalanche of life-negating and life-destroying events cannot be denied, and the underlying causes must be found if we, the Earth, and all its life are to survive. The dying of honeybees in large areas of the world is only one fragment in this whole picture. What can we do about a situation of such global dimensions? Times of crises, whether personal, nationwide, or global, are times of chance and opportunity.
•
These “moments” in history wake us and shake us up so that we can abandon the path of (self) destruction, change our course, and head in a new direction that offers possibilities for life. Without regaining an all-encompassing knowledge—this time not instinctual or traditional—we can gain no real truth.
•
We are floundering on a sea of hypotheses about the origin of life, about our cosmos, evolution, and the goal of evolution. It takes an honest scientist such as Steven Hawkins to acknowledge that our worldview today is based on assumption: “Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. … Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories.
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) did not discard the intellectual accomplishments of our scientific age but, by utilizing them, researched another dimension, which is needed to complement the admirable achievements of the natural, physical and psychological sciences of our time.
•
His method, called “spiritual science,” or “anthroposophy” (anthropos = humankind, sophia = wisdom), can be learned by anyone who applies great stamina of will, concentration, and intent. By reaching into the realms of the reality that causes and affects the sense-perceptible, material world, Steiner was able to cut through the jungle of hypotheses and theories that directly or indirectly influence our everyday actions.
•
Steiner passed on his research results in approximately forty written works and two thousand lectures. The results of his investigations into spiritual realities are not intended to be “believed”; rather, we are to verify them through common sense and wakeful, open, and unbiased minds.
•
Through application to everyday, practical life, the fruits of these insights have become abundant throughout the world—in pedagogy, curative education, medicine, agriculture, religion, the arts, the sciences, and in the social realm.
•
{Rudolf Steiner - Lecture on Bees}

[Dennis Leahy]

If love is not part of the equation, the answer is wrong.

[Bill Ryan]

Beware the fury of a patient man.

John Dryden, 1681

[HopSan]

Russians are slow to harness, but quick to ride.

-- Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg

[rgray222]

Those who have chosen a side in politics are being played like the keys on a piano.

[Kryztian]

Scientia Igne Probata; Veritas Per Fidem

Translation: “Knowledge is proven through fire, Truth through faith.”

Latin proverb quoted at the end of the anonymous Immaculate Constellation (https://mace.house.gov/immaculateconstellation) document.

[Raskolnikov]

"Lying to ourselves is more deeply rooted than lying to others."

Dostoevsky

[Michi]

When you choose to collect experiences rather than things, you never ever run out of storage space.

- Joshua Becker

[Eva2]

“I think it's a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead. That there isn't their life and our life. Nor your life and my life.
That it's just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled with it as deep as entanglement goes.”
~Kate Forster

[Vicus]

Beware the fury of a patient man.

John Dryden, 1681


https://i.chzbgr.com/full/9197343232/h44FCB899/photo-caption-when-you-kick-the-front-seat

[Eva2]

When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.

Ilya Prigogine
Nobel Laureate

[Tintin]

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” — Marcus Aurelius

[Bill Ryan]

While defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world.

John F. Kennedy

[Vicus]

...if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched.

- George H.W. Bush - Interview 1992

[Eva2]

“Existence is a grand cosmic joke, and we, the punchline, spend our days deciphering the laughter of the universe.”
–Jean-Paul Sartre

[Paul D.]

54111

He could be wrong...he could be right ! 🎵😉 🙂

[Raskolnikov]

"We have art so that we shall not die of reality."

Nietzsche

[grapevine]

"In Russia, there comes the hope of the world, not as that sometimes termed of the communistic, or Bolshevik, no; but freedom, freedom! That each man will live for his fellow man! The principle has been born. It will take years for it to be crystallised, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world.”

Edgar Cayce
Reading 3976-29, dated June 22, 1944

[Raskolnikov]

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute."

George Bernard Shaw

[onawah]

"Nations are invisible lines that people assign meaning to.
A life, however, has real meaning and should only be taken as a last resort.
Righteousness can easily become rage.
Justice can easily become scorn."

The Witcher, Season 3 episode 4 "The Invitation"

[Bill Ryan]

The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.
Sir James Jeans, physicist, astronomer and mathematician, 1930

[Raskolnikov]

https://i0.wp.com/politicallyincorrecthumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/quote-hoppe-globalist-agenda-create-global-problems.jpg?w=537&ssl=1

[Eva2]

"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche

[Jamie]

I only came across the name Thomas Sowell for the first time, a few months back. By gosh what a wise sounding soul.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from him:

“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.”

“Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.”

“Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.”

- Thomas Sowell

[Michi]

“When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,
you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

So listen and just hear me. And, if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn, and I’ll listen to you.”

- Anon.

[edina]

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/01/05/intelligence/)

[HopSan]

Nostalgy is good and healthy -- for young people.

-- Hopsanagoras

[Paul D.]

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

-Richard Bach

[Tyler Macmillan]

"Learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

[rgray222]

“Life is amazing.
And then it's awful.
And then it's amazing again.
And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine.
Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary.
That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life.
And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”

L.R. Knost

[Eva2]

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.

Rumi

[Eva2]

I have always endowed madness with a sacred, poetic value, a mystical value. It seemed to me to be a denial of ordinary life, an effort to transcend it, to expand, to go far beyond the limitations of the human condition.”
― Anaïs Nin

[edina]

“ Never wish them pain. That's not who you are. If they caused you pain, they must have pain inside. Wish them healing. ” ― Najwa Zebian (https://www.edu.uwo.ca/news-events/transforming-edu/najwa-zebian-the-only-constant.html)

[DustOff72]

From WH Auden's poem September 1, 1939

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return

[Michi]

"The true spirit of Christmas lies in your heart."


from: The Polar Express

[Eva2]

"Every time the spirit enters into a human being the mystery of the crucifixion is reenacted in the universe. The cross that the spirit has to bear is matter. When the spirit enters the human being, therefore, it takes up its cross—matter—the symbolic synthesis of the four elements. The crucible of the alchemists is none other than the cross. The spirit is at work in this crucible, enabling the human being to transmute the matter of their being, both physical and psychic, into gold. True alchemists are those who study the nature of the 'metals' of their own being, and the formulas of their different combinations. Once they know them, they are free; they can leave their prison and fly through space.
If you want to be free, you must know your cross—that is, you must know yourself and the different elements of your matter. 'Know thyself' is only another way of saying, 'Take up your cross.' Those who know themselves begin to free themselves and become immortal."
🌹 Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

[Applesprig]

Beautiful, thank you.

[JohanB]

Maybe more than a "short" quote, but perhaps worth sharing nearing the end of 2024:

"7 Pebbles

There are seven pebbles in your pocket,
Packed for you by the Lord,
So that you can throw one away
For every ten years completed.

The first pebble, no problem,
The game will take donkey years,
We think in vain, in childish delusion,
That life will go on forever.

At twenty, the second pebble blows away,
Beautiful and red of lip,
You couldn’t get a greater wind-maker,
What I want, the world owes me.

Pebble three makes you think,
For thirty years you’ve had the ring,
Now four sevenths are left,
To make up for time lost.

When the fourth falls from your hand,
Then gray starts to stain your temples,
And what remains in the pocket,
Is too little to get everything done.

Then you reach fifty,
Now time gallops by too quickly,
And after the uphill path of life,
You begin to take the downward slope.

The second last pebble, number six,
Slips from the pocket before you say "knife,"
Those who worked for a boss
Get their share and say goodbye.

Oh woe, oh woe, now pebble seven,
Scripturally, you’ve already lived,
Now much grace is in short supply
For those who might wish to live to eighty.
Of course, there are tough guys,
You sometimes see them in the newspapers,
Who just refuse to kick the bucket
And only at a hundred will they drop.
Whether you live to the point of tedium,
Or say goodbye at around seventy,
At whichever pebble you stop,
We will go, time is running out.
I thus wish you a pocket full of pebbles,
Enough for that hundred-year trip
And joy that will bring you to your knees when you break in old age.
Well, old mate, there you have it,
All we can do now is pray
For health, love, and happiness,
With prosperity for what remains!"

Source "anonymous" :chuckle:

[Eva2]

The world is absurd. Ugly absurd. To repair ugly absurdity, you can't just be normal. You need an alternative absurdity. A beautiful absurdity. We call it "Divine Madness."
✨💫
~Tzvi Freeman

[Eva2]

I’ve always preferred mythology to history. Because history is made up of truths that eventually turn into lies. Mythology is made up of lies that eventually become truths.”
— Jean Cocteau

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/TuUoZcJ.jpeg

[Eva2]

“When the soul awakens, it descends like a fire from heaven. In a moment of surprise, we discover something so powerful, so beyond our persona, we cannot believe it is a part of us. In truth, we are a part of it.”
— Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

[grapevine]

"The world wants to be deceived"
- Attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal

[edina]

"In patience one becomes aware of one's soul and of its continuity of existence, of awareness, of consciousness, in every sphere of activity." Edgar Cayce reading 833-1

[Bill Ryan]

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
We are disturbed not by things, but by the views which we take of them.
When you are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
All learning consists in turning words into things.


Epictetus (AD 50—135)

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fquotlr.com%2Fimages%2Fquotes%2Ftumblr_my0q7mRKBG1s73lino1_500.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=d872f107c75b0ed140e86d1cc8ae5bba9fa8b5c19ef4faeefee9a41020a62feb&ipo=images

The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2.

[Eva2]

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes.

Friedrich Nietzsche

“I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

[Tintin]

""Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

[Frankie Pancakes]

..........

[rgray222]

Woodrow Wilson was one of the worst presidents the world has ever seen. He sold his soul and the soul of his country to the central bankers to ensure his reelection for a second term. Everything you read about him makes you believe that he unwittingly allowed central bankers to establish the Federal Reserve. This man knowingly and intentionally sold his country out for position and power.


“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.”
Woodrow Wilson

[Eva2]

An entire sea of water can't sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can't put you down unless you allow it to get inside you.

Goi Nasu

[Eva2]

"We shall no longer hang on to the tails of public opinion or to a non- existent authority on matters utterly unknown and strange. We shall gradually become experts ourselves in the mastery of the knowledge of the Future."

~Wilhelm Reich

[rgray222]

https://www.brainyquote.com/photos_tr/en/z/zigziglar/617778/zigziglar1-2x.jpg

[Eva2]

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Buckminster Fuller

[rgray222]

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/472022929_1010921551060787_2873255037923942816_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=MUBYq9E5R5IQ7kNvgHWhXvd&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&_nc_gid=Ac4_5Q6fpaYul5I0MQuMreD&oh=00_AYAwg_B5wCCw-vcrY0al_GL6ksEN_xaH3MV-JXciciUnwQ&oe=678786D1

[Eva2]

Between absolute faith and absolute disillusionment there is only a hairline. But that hairline is strong enough to hold apart heaven and hell.
Henry Miller

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell

[Eva2]

"I, Saturn, the greatest of the planets in the firmament, declare here before you all, that I am the meanest and most unprofitable of all that are here present, that my body is weak, corruptible, and of a swarthy hue, but that, nevertheless, it is I that try you all."
— Basil Valentine, The Twelve Keys

[Tintin]

"Waste no more time arguing over what a good man should be. Be one." - Marcus Aurelius

[Tintin]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ghcu3Q_acAUMzYn?format=png&name=900x900

[Bill Ryan]

These are relatively recent quotes, dating back to the early 1990s. But they're so magnificent I feel they belong here.

~~~

Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambitions to achieve. They are cathedrals, grand and pure, the houses of my religion. I approach them as any human goes to worship. On their altars, I strive to perfect myself physically and spiritually. In their presence, I attempt to understand my life, to exorcise vanity, greed, and fear. In the mountains, I celebrate creation, for on each journey, I am reborn.

Honestly, I do not experience fear in the mountains. On the contrary, I feel my shoulders straightening, squaring, like the birds as they straighten their wings. I enjoy the freedom and the altitude. It is only when I return to life below that I feel the world's weight on my shoulders.
Anatoli Boukreev, 1958—1997, one of the greatest Russian mountaineers.

[Eva2]

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us." - St. Anthony

In the universe, there are things that are known and things that are unknown, and in between there are doors - William Blake

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well warmed, and well-fed - Herman Melville

[grapevine]

"Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime."

- Woody Allen

[Paul D.]

"Breathing comes first, everything else can wait "

A typically wise & witty teaching, that my very good friend & mentor, Stephen Russell ( Barefoot Doctor) often said. Meaning conscious, proper breathing of course.
It will be 5 years in a couple of days since he passed, I & many others, I dare say, still miss him.
❤️

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

-----------
54361

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

-----------
54369

[Eva2]

“The Path of Dhyana, the slow but easy way, is for the many. The Path of Tyaga, the Road of Fire 🔥 the burning away of all the dross, is for the few.”
—Bhai Sahib, Naqshbandi Sufi Master,
regarding the paths taken by an initiate

[Eva2]

'I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas.'
Charles Bukowski

[norman]

We were hit with the genocidal cult of the Globalists and its attendant Woke Mind Virus. Much of the world has been hit by Communism. The Middle East was hit by Wahhabism. All of these PSYOPS and kinetic wars are elaborate human control mechanisms.

It’s time to grow up and be free.

Alexandra Bruce

[Eva2]

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels turning in the
cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in,
and passion will make our bodies taut with power,
we shall stamp our feet with new power
and old things will fall down,
we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like
burnt paper.
~D.H. Lawrence

[rgray222]

"When You Are Old"

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
~W.B. Yeats

https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/475764436_122221353758071158_7511583224088004620_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=zZW-SZ4Hus0Q7kNvgEtKe2U&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.xx&_nc_gid=AIbRpPiLbUAM5tRkyAqoEcr&oh=00_AYCTml_8QqBsLaGI9ji5lAyNsEH5nIvXRBVZ1L1FITEhNw&oe=67AB4263

[rgray222]

https://parade.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_600/MTkwNTgwODc0NTQ0ODE3Mjc3/grandparents-quotes-grandparents-day-pope-francis.webp
https://parade.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_600/MTkwNTgwODc0Mjc1NzI2NDYx/grandparents-quotes-grandparents-day-best-parents.webp
https://parade.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_600/MTkwNTgwODc0MDA2NTA0NTcz/grandparents-quotes-grandparents-day-gene-perret-bargain-1.webp
https://parade.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_600/MTkwNTgwODc0MDA3MDI4ODYx/grandparents-quotes-grandparents-day-love-children-1.webp

[Kryztian]

“I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job -- meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher?”

--- Charles Bukowski

[Eva2]

"Once every people in the world believed that trees were divine … and that deer, and ravens and foxes, and wolves and bears, and clouds and pools, almost all things under the sun and moon, and the sun and moon, were not less divine … "
W.B. Yeats

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/UXlS6eS.jpeg

[happyuk]

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Henry David Thoreau

[Eva2]

The thing itself is one; the images are many. What leads to a perceptive understanding of the thing is not the focus on one image but the viewing of many images together.
Rudolph Steiner

[Bill Ryan]

The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
Thucydides (460—400 BC)

[This wasn't Thucydides' personal view. His strongly disapproved of it. He attributed it to one of the Athenian politicians, Athens being the ancient Greek superpower at the time.]

[Ewan]

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.kinja-img.com%2Fgawker-media%2Fimage%2Fupload%2Fs--zXBmINZl--%2Fnlnyiuhyijjyl2o4znsf.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=4605b941889cb8430dbcbceaedd4d2ee700480498c1c11512335627b6958b8ba&ipo=images
:laughs:

[rgray222]

https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/476660778_1054277833412629_8584567150003912910_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=GJ4QpgWczIAQ7kNvgGRDgEW&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.xx&_nc_gid=ADCCT00B33pT2Dc04szyiGV&oh=00_AYAcWCstbErpl-DBTfsW_i0n1OYRgXkLDAxOl9nuYJkLMQ&oe=67BC1758

[Eva2]

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to control it.
H. L. Mencken

https://scontent.fcxh3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/480544685_691545230106212_2873839193812749817_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=tDuAmpwZ-5IQ7kNvgGsW3RM&_nc_oc=Adi3QZfLM_Ks-Ub0C9M5aukF0Snd5jN2RzoO8Z7ZvlqoVQjPjmU4GC1Ubfc5JM8NGyr0MZRH0lIF_VCJn9kjLklH&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fcxh3-1.fna&_nc_gid=A-LoAhLKtsEurJEOlR9-5y2&oh=00_AYD2-GXRXIWDnPuza2R8t9vQCvvk59awj86Vorzd5f6pEA&oe=67C2B0C1

[Eva2]

I believe that the attacks on your life have much more to do with who you might be in the future than who you have been in the past.
Lisa Bevere

[Eva2]

“Spiritual warfare is very real. There is a furious, fierce, and ferocious battle raging in the realm of the spirit between the forces of God and the forces of evil. Warfare happens every day, all the time. Whether you believe it or not, you are in a battlefield. You are in warfare.”
― Pedro Okoro

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F30%2F68%2F14%2F30681498288cc6f8b98fd0b21660277b.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=169dece8457c0c43364bc5f04e595a7929eb1f71b26ba8e5cb2435345465fcc5&ipo=images

[Eva2]

https://scontent.fcxh3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/482807651_3238343536319050_5294349974381831191_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=-ObKv5zxdPQQ7kNvgG6UgX0&_nc_oc=Adj5WvwEii5SYSgY3eygLY8wj6drE6ode8spPJwIKNXQvNasXAYM8zsaKTPn7uNNWkOJIpF9Cx3MrJe9Mnyalplm&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fcxh3-1.fna&_nc_gid=AHzAl0MxXVqhGgebRuRdP4F&oh=00_AYEPqsEMD60m-SwAy6O19vALlPQWz1ihNimUQzHXDAm5TQ&oe=67D00424

'THE UNIVERSE, AND ALL IT CONTAINS, IS A MENTAL CREATION OF THE ALL. Verily indeed, ALL IS MIND! "THE ALL creates in its Infinite Mind countless Universes, which exist for aeons of Time—and yet, to THE ALL, the creation, development, decline and death of a million Universes is as the time of the twinkling of an eye."—The Kybalion. "The Infinite Mind of THE ALL is the womb of Universes."—The Kybalion.'

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."
- Ludwig van Beethoven

[Kryztian]

"The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.”

--- Henry Kissinger

[Tintin]

https://i.imgur.com/UXlS6eS.jpeg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GlasEU3agAAiOdJ?format=jpg&name=small

[Eva2]

'The thing about novelty is that you will never know what's coming next...the mystery is the magic that arrests your curiousity, expectation and attention. That is why no one is in charge. No one. Expecting the unexpected is the plot twist no one sees coming until it's here.'
Terence McKenna

[Bill Ryan]

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Frédéric Bastiat (1801—1850)

[Eva2]

The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.

Antonio Gramsci

[Eva2]

Patience visited me
And it reminded me
That good things take time to come to fruition
And grow slowly with stability
Peace visited me
And it reminded me
That I may remain calm through the storms of life
Regardless of the chaos surrounding me
Hope visited me
And it reminded me
That better times lay ahead
And it would always be there to guide and uplift me
Humility visited me
And it reminded me
That I may achieve it
Not by trying to shrink myself and make myself less
But by focusing on serving the world and uplifting those around me
Kindness visited me
And it reminded me
To be more gentle, forgiving and compassionate toward myself
And those surrounding me
Confidence visited me
And it reminded me
To not conceal or suppress my gifts and talents
In order to make others feel more comfortable
But to embrace what makes me me
Focus visited me
And it reminded me
That other people’s insecurities and judgements about me
Are not my problem
And I should redirect my attention
From others back to me
Freedom visited me
And it reminded me
That no one has control over my mindset, thoughts and wellbeing
But me
And love visited me
And it reminded me
That I need not search for it in others
As it lies within me.
Words by Tahlia Hunter

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/4TTdG0X.jpeg

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/QQtgIBC.jpeg

[norman]

This is the real function of epistemological warfare. The purpose is not to ensure every secret remains hidden but to make the truth unknowable.

Peter Duke (2025)

[Raskolnikov]

https://i0.wp.com/educationdojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/quote-herbert-dune-power-government-attracts-pathological-personalities.jpg?w=530&ssl=1

[kfm27917]

As Ayn Rand wrote: "You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."

[Raskolnikov]

"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

[rgray222]

Taking a bit of literary freedom, this is more of a saying (custom) than a quote.

https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/489011441_635313725931158_4418349618002051345_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=yC4zC6YWG_0Q7kNvwEtSEvD&_nc_oc=AdlKCFFg5fupnWueBTWTHUetzJ1PGq0eSvCuQOkiK6FrUGHqCgVdB5j9ixQFgl3FRd0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.xx&_nc_gid=_KO7HHR6uYhZZD47B0WxzA&oh=00_AfHg-ThkWoqmrA79rCb3b4dLEVERavg0TByVFnSP6mmPBw&oe=67FCDD30

[Raskolnikov]

https://images3.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED686/67ab8d2d35f5b.webp

[Eva2]

The closer the collapse of the Empire, the crazier its laws are

Marcus Tullius
Cicero

[Ewan]

Your father's words were never just advice,
they were echoes of battles he'd already fought
and a guide to paths he'd hope you'd walk without the scars he carried.

Anonymous Poet's Society

[arwen]

"This we know - the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

--Chief Seattle

[leavesoftrees]

Quote of the day: “a debate is masturbation for procrastination and wasting time was an affront to life’s fleeting essence.” Dr Jack Kruse

[Bill Ryan]

We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no-one understands science and technology.

This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan

[Bruce G Charlton]

Re: We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no-one understands science and technology.

This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Carl Sagan

*

What follows is not a great quote! But anyway...

The classic science fiction novel A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter M Miller portrays a post-nuclear-holocaust world in which the tradition of scientific practice – previously handed-down from one generation of scientists to the next – has been broken. Only a few scientific artefacts remain, such as fragments of electronic equipment. It turns out that ‘after science’, scientific objects and records make no sense and are wildly misinterpreted. A blueprint is regarded as if it was an illuminated manuscript, diodes are regarded as lucky talismans.

Modern ‘science’ has entered a similar state in which the artefacts of science remain – such as places called universities, the academic hierarchy, white coats, laboratory organization, expensive tools and machines, statistical methods, and the peer review mechanism – but understanding of what these mean has been lost.

From the chapter After Science in my Not Even Trying - the corruption of Real Science (https://corruption-of-science.blogspot.com/)

[Raskolnikov]

"Evil cannot create anything new, it can only spoil and destroy what good forces have invented or created."

J.R.R. Tolkien

[Bruce G Charlton]

"Evil cannot create anything new, it can only spoil and destroy what good forces have invented or created."

J.R.R. Tolkien

That is an essentially accurate paraphrase of Tolkien's view of evil, as expressed in his works; but it is not an actual quotation; he never said those words.

The giveaway is "good forces" - which is an un-Tolkienian phrase and concept; and "invented or created" is clumsy.

I don't know mashed-up this pseudo-quote - it is all over the internet! - but it should not be attributed to The Professor!

[Eva2]

Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and more terrible becomes the price that must be paid

Aldous Huxley

[Raskolnikov]

"Evil cannot create anything new, it can only spoil and destroy what good forces have invented or created."

J.R.R. Tolkien

That is an essentially accurate paraphrase of Tolkien's view of evil, as expressed in his works; but it is not an actual quotation; he never said those words.

The giveaway is "good forces" - which is an un-Tolkienian phrase and concept; and "invented or created" is clumsy.

I don't know mashed-up this pseudo-quote - it is all over the internet! - but it should not be attributed to The Professor!

Good to know. I liked and agreed with the general message but have never read any of Tolkien's works. Funny how some can get so familiar with a writer and his works that they can point out a forgery without batting an eye. Thanks.

[Eva2]

Hell is other people

Sartre

[Raskolnikov]

Hell is other people

Sartre

Wow Eva2, I'm surprised to hear that one from you, only because your contributions have been so uplifting and profound, spiritual food for the soul you know. I've really enjoyed them, thank you. It's funny, I used to quote that one from Sartre all the time. Life in the big city. Hope all is well.

"I took the road less traveled, now I don't know where the f*ck I am."

Unknown

[Bruce G Charlton]

@Raskolnikov - I am actually a 50+ year Tolkien maniac - so I am very familiar with him and his works!

(My Tolkien (and friends) website (http://http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/) is "officially" ranked in the top ten Tolkien blogs.)

JRRT isn't for everyone - far from it; but if you happen to share the wavelength he inhabits and are attuned to his world - well, then there is nothing and nobody better.

[grapevine]

"Man, I get up every day and I realise I'm not in control of this whole thing."

- Mel Gibson -
(in answer to the question: "What do you do every day that is beneficial to you?" )

[Eva2]

Hell is other people

Sartre

Wow Eva2, I'm surprised to hear that one from you, only because your contributions have been so uplifting and profound, spiritual food for the soul you know. I've really enjoyed them, thank you. It's funny, I used to quote that one from Sartre all the time. Life in the big city. Hope all is well.

"I took the road less traveled, now I don't know where the f*ck I am."

Unknown

Thinking of this in terms of our present circumstances :bigsmile: thank you but never thought of my posts as particularly 'profound'

[Kryztian]

"Rejoice! The purpose of life is joy. Rejoice at the sky, the sun, the stars, the grass, the trees, animals, people. If this joy is disturbed it means that you’ve made a mistake somewhere. Find your mistake and correct it. Most often this joy is disturbed by money and ambition."

— Leo Tolstoy

[Bill Ryan]

Talent hits a target no-one else can hit. Genius hits a target no-one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer

[norman]

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius

Edward Gibbon

[Raskolnikov]

"Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don't know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields."

Thomas Sowell

[Bill Ryan]

Some people are so poor, all they have is money.

Bob Marley

[norman]

Now that we are discovering and really conquering physics, with that comes the obvious situation that we are still the fallen creatures, and are probably more corrupt and decadent than even our ancestors. Technology has a tendency to empower that and complexity empowers evil because it has more places to hide.

And so only through embracing God and the holy spirit will we not destroy ourselves.

Only a moral people, Thomas Jefferson said, can have this republic.

Well only a moral people guided by God are going to be able to survive and thrive, with how powerful we are.


Alex Jones - Friday 18th April 2025

[mojorissin]

the smile that you send out returns to you ...

N american indian

[Ewan]

'At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.'

Aristotle.

[Raskolnikov]

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of a higher obligation. … To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.”

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and all that is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Thomas Jefferson

[Eva2]

https://scontent.fyka1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/492348734_122150151464531830_4278744653313764086_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=jhIarDnhqyUQ7kNvwFEmRoR&_nc_oc=AdlnOu-M8mm1P1TvF_ROoHfdoh1HLI0XyncdYTpv-wDLePPDqxwRw00OBA6bqm9yjp1DiGheSR8utYF1uhjdunRX&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fyka1-1.fna&_nc_gid=s_1UTZpQ2XMxgbysiaVFnw&oh=00_AfFZMcgt7LzAksxiGdElG1Ir0XgAZF7fo83dAbbgHzQLsA&oe=680F2305

[Raskolnikov]

Couldn't agree more Eva2. I've always seen through the facade of ownership and people's delusions and addiction to it. I remember seeing bumper stickers in LA in the eighties that read, "He who dies with the most toys wins." That kind of property ownership is empty. But the question of property itself is an interesting one. America's founding fathers proclaimed it as important as life and liberty. And Mark Passio summed it up in his Natural Law Transgressions by stating that "Every harmful action that a human being is capable of taking is a form of THEFT. Some form of PROPERTY is always being stolen when a wrong-doing is committed. LIFE is a form of property. RIGHTS are a form of property. FREEDOM is a form of property." And many in the freedom/freeman movement go so far as saying that your children are your property, in that the government has no right to trespass upon or against such property. So while I agree spiritually/universally with the above and know it to be true deep in my core, unfortunately, we may need to begin viewing property in the natural law setting of which Passio speaks in order to stop the corporate parasites which all governments have become from taking our life, liberty, and property because it's becoming painfully obvious that that is their ultimate goal.
:focus:

[happyuk]

"I'd rather have questions that can't be answered, than answers that can't be questioned."

Pippa Malmgren (towards the end of this great talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqDaZTdNSqY).)

[Raskolnikov]

"Democracy has turned out to be not majority rule, but rule by well-organized and well-connected minority groups who steal from the majority."

Lew Rockwell

[grapevine]

"They are not fit to manage a whelk stall."
- Churchill on the Labour Party in 1945 -

(nothing's changed :()

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F74%2Fcb%2F70%2F74cb70a2809d2695f8fe42ffda884d43--faith-quotes-quotes-images.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=aa15e1c164b685cd2e7dcafffd6e62b31356c750db905aa6debb61a67c390208

Just emerging from a period of change by the redecoration of one bedroom and swapping over two other rooms, you wouldn't believe the chaos caused. Given that the family were all working together on these projects, easily explains why the world is in constant flux, let alone the addition of a resistant population.

[Raskolnikov]

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."
Attributed to Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948)

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
George Washington, in a speech of January 7, 1790

[Raskolnikov]

"If it requires a uniform, it's a worthless endeavor."

“I often warn people: ‘Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, ‘There is no ‘I’ in team.’ What you should tell them is, ‘Maybe not. But there is an ‘I’ in independence, individuality, and integrity.”

George Carlin

[Eva2]

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.

Frank Zappa

[Raskolnikov]

"Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered."
Cicero

"The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible."
Ayn Rand

[Bill Ryan]

What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
The last dying words of Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749—1827), mathematician and astronomer, one of the greatest minds of his era.

[rgray222]

I am not a big advocate for anything that alters the mind (mostly because it can be done naturally) but some psychedelic plants and mushrooms certainly offer an avenue to expand your thinking.

Terence McKenna aka Timothy Leary

McKenna's work included several books and lectures, and he was particularly noted for his theories and ideas, such as the "Stoned Ape Theory," which suggests that psilocybin mushrooms played a role in the evolutionary leap from primate to human.

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist, mystic, psychonaut, lecturer, and author. He was known for his advocacy of the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants and his exploration of topics such as psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. McKenna was often referred to as the "Timothy Leary of the '90s," "one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism," and the "intellectual voice of rave culture." He was born and raised in Paonia, Colorado, and later studied ethnobotany at the University of California, Berkeley. McKenna was also known for his knowledge of the use of psychedelics and his influential role in bringing psychoactive plants into the public consciousness of Western civilization.

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aKGewGN_460svav1.mp4

[Paul D.]

"Terence McKenna aka Timothy Leary"



I think I know what you mean...I think you might mean "Leary of the 90's ". But Terence Mckenna is one of the greats in my eyes & ears, best speaker & actual voice :) I've ever heard. So I have to clarify, he was not " also known as Timothy Leary".They were two very distinct people.

Both were advocates of psychedelics, one in the 60's, one the 90's, so they had that in common, but Mckenna had serious doubts about L.S.D. , which Leary championed. He was far more in favour of Psylocibin mushrooms.
Also, for me, Mckenna was in another league all together. A great, thinker, experiencer/ psychonaut & beautiful soul to be frank. Something I personally can't say about Leary.
I love Mckenna, I don't agree with much he said. But I can listen to him saying it all day :)

[rgray222]

"Terence McKenna aka Timothy Leary"



I think I know what you mean...I think you might mean "Leary of the 90's ". But Terence Mckenna is one of the greats in my eyes & ears, best speaker & actual voice :) I've ever heard. So I have to clarify, he was not " also known as Timothy Leary".They were two very distinct people.

Both were advocates of psychedelics, one in the 60's, one the 90's, so they had that in common, but Mckenna had serious doubts about L.S.D. , which Leary championed. He was far more in favour of Psylocibin mushrooms.
Also, for me, Mckenna was in another league all together. A great, thinker, experiencer/ psychonaut & beautiful soul to be frank. Something I personally can't say about Leary.
I love Mckenna, I don't agree with much he said. But I can listen to him saying it all day :)

You are correct - thanks for the clarification

Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) - He was a clinical psychologist at Harvard University - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary
Terence McKenna (November 16, 1946–April 3, 2000) - He studied shamanism at UC Berkeley. He was referred to as Timothy Leary of the 90's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/sHZ8irl.jpeg

[Raskolnikov]

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."

Alexis de Tocqueville

[Kryztian]

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."

Alexis de Tocqueville

Fake quote:

https://www.quora.com/Was-this-De-Tocqueville-s-statement-from-1835-prescient-The-American-Republic-will-endure-until-the-day-Congress-discovers-that-it-can-bribe-the-public-with-the-publics-money

[Raskolnikov]

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."

Alexis de Tocqueville

Fake quote:

https://www.quora.com/Was-this-De-Tocqueville-s-statement-from-1835-prescient-The-American-Republic-will-endure-until-the-day-Congress-discovers-that-it-can-bribe-the-public-with-the-publics-money

Wouldn't doubt it. Seemed a common sentiment among the founders some 50 years earlier:

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” Benjamin Franklin

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy--to be followed by a dictatorship.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler Woodhouselee

[Tintin]

Take note my friends, even when all may seem insurmountable :flower:

This (with thanks to Brian Roemmele (https://x.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1920831387810361452)) from Napoleon Hill:

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1920831299893551104/pu/vid/avc1/718x362/aE6HHXTZWUbIX8GM.mp4?tag=12


"Let me tell you something that most men never grasp until it's too late. Your life bends to your assumptions. The way you expect things to go is the way they usually go. Not because of fate but because of focus."

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.F0DMxgT5U-ov02Aedg6MjgHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=f25586423fd4e6a27d87b5044141b1530ed308573fa73996e68b395086f8363a

(Yet my father used to say, "Fear and respect go hand in hand".)

Have to say, I much prefer Albert Camus's quote :thumbsup: :)

[Raskolnikov]

Seems some things never change...

“To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century [1851]

[Raskolnikov]

"The most monstrous monster is the monster with noble feelings."

Dostoyevsky

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/L3ZjcND.jpeg

[Raskolnikov]

"Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides;
Who covers faults, at last shame them derides."

"Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt."

Shakespeare/Bacon

[Eva2]

"When you notice that in order to produce, you must obtain permission from those who produce nothing; when you see that money flows to those who deal not in goods but in favors; when you realize that many get rich through bribery and influence rather than through work, and that the laws no longer protect you against them, but instead, they are protected from you; when you discover that corruption is rewarded and honesty becomes a form of self-sacrifice, then you can confidently say, without fear of being wrong, that your society is doomed."

Ayn Rand

[Raskolnikov]

"When you notice that in order to produce, you must obtain permission from those who produce nothing; when you see that money flows to those who deal not in goods but in favors; when you realize that many get rich through bribery and influence rather than through work, and that the laws no longer protect you against them, but instead, they are protected from you; when you discover that corruption is rewarded and honesty becomes a form of self-sacrifice, then you can confidently say, without fear of being wrong, that your society is doomed."

Ayn Rand

"Are we to understand," asked the judge, "that you hold your own interests above the interests of the public?"
"I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals."

Ayn Rand

[Eva2]

We live in a cage with open gates. "Our mind is like a parachute, only works when it is open". Frank Zappa 1969

[edina]

"Let your love of life be in keeping with a poem, the poem of life - love, hope, joy, gladness."

ECRL 3440-2 (Edgar Cayce reading QoD (Quote of the Day))

55233
Yamaki Pine Bonsai est 1625 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaki_Pine)

[Ewan]

We are far more united by what we care about and understand than by whatever we might temporarily disagree about.

Bill Ryan here. (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?129749-Bill-Ryan-s-Mission-and-His-Lunchbox-Sociopath-du-Jour-and-Unicorn-Urine&p=1670110&viewfull=1#post1670110)

[Eva2]

Quote by Edward Bernays (1928):
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”

[Raskolnikov]

"It is noteworthy that I usually thought of “the sublime and the beautiful” during my dissipation, often just when I hit the rock-bottom of abjection. These thoughts came in little flashes, as if to remind me of the existence of “the sublime and the beautiful”; but they didn’t interfere with my dissipation. Just the opposite, in fact. They seemed to spice it up by contrast and, like a good sauce, helped bring out the taste. This sauce, concocted of contradictions and suffering, contained painful self-analysis, and the resulting agonies and torments added piquancy and even meaning to my dissipation—in short, it was what a good sauce is meant to be."

Dostoyevsky

[Raskolnikov]

"It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people but care more about their opinions than our own."

Marcus Aurelius

[Bluegreen]

"Ya chooses ya ticket and ya pays ya price."

– Popeye

[Raskolnikov]

"Ya chooses ya ticket and ya pays ya price."

– Popeye

So funny, my friends and I would skateboard to the local laundromat that had the best pinball machine that always said, "Ya pay ya money, ya take ya chances."

[Tintin]

“America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right & wrong, truth & error, virtue & evil, Christ & chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded” - Fulton J. Sheen

[Isserley]

“There are beings in the spiritual realms for whom anxiety and fear emanating from human beings offer welcome food. If fear and anxiety radiate from people and they break out in panic, then these creatures find welcome nutrition and they become more and more powerful. These beings are hostile towards humanity.”

– Rudolf Steiner

[Bill Ryan]

They make a desert, and call it peace.

Tacitus (Roman Historian, 56—120 AD)

[Bill Ryan]

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953

[Tintin]

Brilliant, from whoever ABNDESIGNS may be (courtesy of Olga Bazova (https://x.com/OlgaBazova/status/1937047332903932025))

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GuHGSKYXcAE-juN?format=jpg&name=900x900

[Ewan]

For those that can't see Twitter links...

"America so de-industrialized we don't even manufacture our own consent."

[gini]

" If It's the truth you seek,look into the dark"...

[norman]

If Every Country Is in Debt… Who's the Money Owed To? - [ youtube chanel 'invisible hand' ]

[Eva2]

'The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish.'
Terence McKenna

[Kryztian]

For existential philosophers, AI does not pose an existential threat to humanity because it might exterminate all humans. It poses an existential threat because it offers answers faster than humans can ask the questions that help them contemplate their existence. And when humans stop asking existential questions, they stop being human.





– Pia Lauritzen

[Kryztian]

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?"

Job 38:4-7

[grapevine]

For existential philosophers, AI does not pose an existential threat to humanity because it might exterminate all humans. It poses an existential threat because it offers answers faster than humans can ask the questions that help them contemplate their existence. And when humans stop asking existential questions, they stop being human.





– Pia Lauritzen

A case in question . . .
N5VPBeSysHw

[Bill Ryan]

The consequences of machines thinking would be too dreadful. Let us hope and believe that they cannot do so.
Alan Turing, 1950

Success in creating effective AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don't know.
Stephen Hawking, 2017

AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.
Elon Musk, 2025

Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us?
Samuel Butler ('Erewhon'), 1872

[Raskolnikov]

"Free people make free choices. Free choices mean you get unequal outcomes. You can have freedom, or you can have equal outcomes. You can't have both."

Naval Ravikant

[Isserley]

“Poor God, how often He is blamed for all the suffering in the
world. It’s like praising Satan for allowing all the good that happens.”

― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

[Isserley]

https://i.redd.it/3x3wzfujsfq21.jpg

[Raskolnikov]

"None are so hopeless enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks right in their eyes."

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."

Goethe

[Bill Ryan]

Always, always do the right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right people, and you will have no regrets for the rest of your life.

Allan J. McDonald, aerospace engineer.
Aware of a very specific technical danger, McDonald stood his ground and refused to sign off on a launch safety confirmation for the Space Shuttle Challenger. NASA proceeded anyway, and exactly because of that technical issue the Challenger broke apart just after launch killing everyone on board.

[rgray222]

"Fundamentally the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we're a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species than if we're not.

"I think if you're going to choose a place to die, then Mars is probably, you know, not a bad choice…

Elon Musk

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/QlwuxtA.jpeg

[Kryztian]

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”

― Emile Chartier Alain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_(philosopher))

[grapevine]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.explicit.bing.net%2Fth%2Fid%2FOIP.cy5iF54SqSibCR41WWOm4wHaDf%3Fpid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=b6c4d474531dc560248df55766de65d96374d1be40001061b54efd7de938b278&ipo=images

[mojorissin]

The dog that trots about gets the bone …

[rgray222]

Carl Jung: "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens."

Albert Einstein: "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

Ellen DeGeneres: "My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where she is."