Quotes

[Tristan]

D.H. Lawrence

"Love is never a fulfillment. Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life."
— D.H. Lawrence

 

[Zadius Sky]

In the film, The Life of David Gale, Prof. Gale giving a lecture to his class:

Fantasies have to be unrealistic because the moment, the second that you get what you seek, you don't, you can't want it anymore. In order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects perpetually absent. It's not the "it" that you want, it's the fantasy of "it." So, desire supports crazy fantasies. This is what Pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness. Or why we say the hunt is sweeter than the kill. Or be careful what you wish for. Not because you'll get it, but because you're doomed not to want it once you do. So the lesson of Lacan is, living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you've attained in terms of your desires but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self-sacrifice. Because in the end, the only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.

 

[Therpo]

This comes from V's televised speech. (I have left out the part about blowing up the government

V: Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent

 

[Tristan]

"To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do"

Aristotle

 

[ScarletBegonias]

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." -Mao Zedong

 

[Therpo]

"There can be no negotiation at the point of a gun" Ayn Rand

 

[Graalsword]

Then again, given that human history appears to be defined by a succession of more or less corrupt ruling elites, and if we are to assume that such corruption (and its spread throughout society) is the mechanism by which a civilization attracts cosmic catastrophe, blaming and deposing the elite is a good solution. The problem, however, is that the underlying mechanism is not understood by the people, which means that they lack the knowledge that, if they are to prevent further destruction, they must, at all costs, prevent the establishment of any future corrupt elite.

Laura Knight-Jadczyk

 

[Paragon]

Then again, given that human history appears to be defined by a succession of more or less corrupt ruling elites, and if we are to assume that such corruption (and its spread throughout society) is the mechanism by which a civilization attracts cosmic catastrophe, blaming and deposing the elite is a good solution. The problem, however, is that the underlying mechanism is not understood by the people, which means that they lack the knowledge that, if they are to prevent further destruction, they must, at all costs, prevent the establishment of any future corrupt elite.

Laura Knight-Jadczyk

This strikes me as an absolutely important quote to understand. It is this exact lack of essential understanding (Psychopaths,Predators and Ponerization), which has been the scourge of humanity for thousands of years.

 

[Diane]

From a book that I have a love for and a frustration with both at the same time. The Kolbrin

"Tomorrow they will revert to their old way of life and permit evil to reign through hypocrites and self-deceivers. How can they be brought to understand that should God intervene to bring about the rule of God, Earth and mankind will have failed him and be unworthy of his rule? Life's purpose is to produce shepherds, not sheep. But the lives of the people are turned inwards upon themselves."

 

[treesparrow]

Nothing succeeds like a budgerigar.

Anon.

 

[PabloAngello]

Don't be afraid to fail.

[Don't know whose but heard it in motivation video said by Arnold Schwarzenegger]

 

[leesmith]

A couple of quotes.

"I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big
success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from
individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so
many rootlets, or like the capillaries." --William James, The Will to
Believe

"Crocodiles live for a hundred years; roses, three days. And yet, we give roses."
Michel Chrestien

 

[Tristan]

Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure.
Meister Eckhart

 

[Mal7]

"Philosophy, as I have hitherto understood and lived it, is a voluntary quest for even the most detested and notorious sides of existence. From the long experience I gained from such a wandering through ice and wilderness, I learned to view differently all that had hitherto philosophized: the hidden history of philosophy, the psychology of its great names, came to light for me. 'How much truth can a spirit endure, how much truth does a spirit dare?' - this became for me the real standard of value. Error is cowardice - every achievement of knowledge is a consequence of courage, of severity toward oneself, of cleanliness toward oneself - Such an experiemental philosophy as I live anticipates experimentally even the possibilities of the most fundamental nihilism; but this does not mean that it must halt at a negation, a No, a will to negation. It wants rather to cross over to the opposite of this - to a Dionysian affirmation of the world as it is, without subtraction, exception, or selection - it wants the eternal circulation: - the same things, the same logic and illogic of entanglements. The highest state a philosopher can attain: to stand in a Dionysian relationship to existence - my formula for this is amor fati."

- Nietzsche, The Will to Power, Section 1041.

 

[Voyageur]

This was in Arnie's presentation on Fukushima Daiichi:

Sooner or later, in any foolproof system,
the fools are going to exceed the proofs!
Arnie Gundersen