Quotes
The blog today is comprised of random quotes, no particular theme in mind except it might in part reflect what might be called The Child’s Lament or Why Does It Have To Be Like This? It’s a question I’ve asked for as long as I can remember and after 74 years of living I’m no closer to an answer than ever. The only response I’ve ever been able to come up with is this:
The simple but terribly complex answer as I’ve thought about it lo these many years is because we (humans) aren’t enlightened; meaning we are still under the illusion of separateness, from one another and the world around us. Until we recognize this artificial division, based on ignorance, we will suffer and cause the suffering we have perpetrated throughout our human history.
“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there is no longer any first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race — until that day, the dreams of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained:”
Speech by H.I.M. HAILE SELASSIE I – California 28th February 1968
“It is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin’ day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don’t give a fuck what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich!”
Kurt Vonnegut on politicians and corporate CEOs.
‘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.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Justice is what love looks like in public.”
Cornell West
“Every government is run by liars,” independent journalist I.F. Stone observed, “and nothing they say should be believed.”
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
|who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
Pema Chodon says virtually the same thing and much more simply:
” If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that ~ then that will take you as far as you can go . And then you will understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught . “
Jungian analyst Florida Scott-Maxwell, a writer whose most important work was written while she was in her mid-80s, expressed this brilliantly: “Life does not accommodate you;” she said, “it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition.”
Law of Politics: Communicating logic to a conservative is only a little more difficult than communicating with the dead.
Since Rachel Carson with her few thousand words, Silent Spring, in 1962 changed the direction of the world:
“We have a right to know, and should no longer accept the counsel of those who tell us we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals.”
“Can any civilization wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.”
“Nature controls her own.”
“As crude a weapon as a cave man’s club, has been hurled against the fabric of life.”
“The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature, but of ourselves.”
“My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest…no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak… Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism…true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”
Gandhi
“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels.”
Mario Salvio, 1964
“Our goal in the Civil Rights Movement was not to injure or destroy but to build a sense of community, to reconcile people to the true oneness of all humanity,” said Rep. John Lewis. “African Americans in the 60s could have chosen to arm themselves, but we made a conscious decision not to. We were convinced that peace could not be achieved through violence. Violence begets violence, and we believed the only way to achieve peaceful ends was through peaceful means. We took a stand against an unjust system, and we decided to use this faith as our shield and the power of compassion as our defense.
“And that is why this nation celebrates the genius and the elegance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s work and philosophy. Through the power of non-violent action, Dr. King accomplished something that no movement, no action of government, no war, no legislation, or strategy of politics had ever achieved in this nation’s history. It was non-violence that not only brought an end to legalized segregation and racial discrimination, but Dr. King’s peaceful work changed the hearts of millions of Americans who stood up for justice and rejected the injury of violence forever.”
Rep. John Lewis
“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”
George Carlin
