TagsTagsThe nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. — George Orwell
All the people in the Kuo-ch’ing monastery— They say, “Han-shan is an idiot.” “Am I really an idiot:” I reflect. But my reflections fail to solve the question: for I myself do not know who the self is, And how can others know who I am? — Hanshan, Taoist poet
Here’s an open thread to dish about the Oscars, or anything else that crosses your radar…
Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you my friend Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again — Steely Dan, Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Adversity does teach who your real friends are. — Lois McMaster Bujold
Here’s a private open thread, restricted to registered LGF users, for a freaky Friday evening. If you have an LGF account, log in and then click the green magnifying glass in the row of icons at bottom right of this post to enter LGF Spy in Lounge Mode. That opens a ...
Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil. — Democritus
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. — Aldous Huxley
To throw oneself into strange teachings is quite dangerous. — Confucius
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. — Saul Bellow
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. — Carl Sagan
The rhino is a homely beast, For human eyes he’s not a feast. Farwell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, I’ll stare at something less prepoceros. — Ogden Nash, The Rhinoceros
The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. — Arthur Miller
Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? May memory restore again and again The smallest color of the smallest day: Time is the school in which we ...
It’s so hard to believe in anything anymore. If it weren’t for my lucky astrology mood watch, I wouldn’t believe in anything. — Steve Martin
Let us do something while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! ...
The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millennialists he expresses ...
Let’s not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. — James Thurber
The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him. — Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living
Has a dog Buddha-nature? This is the most serious question of all. If you say yes or no, You lose your own Buddha-nature. — The Gateless Gate
We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture. — Pastor Ray Mummert, creationist/intelligent design proponent
When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. ...
It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. — William Carlos Williams