User:Kalki/Restorations
ꇎ Ω ꇎ
The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time.
~ The White Rose ~
You ever see so many goddamned lightning rods on one house?
Deputy Harley Duncan in Powder
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams
No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.
Theodore Roosevelt
And then we discovered why —
Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden...
He was being kind.
"Son of Mine", about the 10th Incarnation of The Doctor
in
The Family of Blood
☥
edit
 
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 Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. ~ Albert Einstein ~ 
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This user has been on Wikiquote for 21 years, 3 months, and 8 days. |
| 117,777+ | This user has made over 117,777 contributions to Wikiquote. |
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With this and other accounts I have made over 129,007 contributive edits, created well over 1001 pages and done substantial work on well over 1000 more, some of which are listed here. |  
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Restorations
editThis page was begun to showcase material that had existed on userpages associated with my own, from which humorously or profoundly educational material I once had posted has been removed. For the most part these HAVE been my own, and I have not denied this, but also state that these may include accounts I have neither confirmed nor denied to be mine, but which I have NOT contested to be in some way associated with my accounts, whether they are actually my own or not. In either situation I am quite confident that their existence and use has NEVER been malicious, and I assert that attempts to portray them as this are severely misguided by delusions of what the Truth of matters actually is.
The defacing censorship and deletions now are extending to not only the userpages confirmed as mine, or which I have not contested as being otherwise, but to the talk pages of these as well. I consider this nothing else than extremely dictatorial and presumptive censorship, which I consider truly tragic. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 00:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC) + tweaks
Ananke (talk · contributions)
edit
Is being and knowing what I am and know.
Yet I am the necessary angel of earth,
Since, in my sight, you see the earth again,
Cleared of its stiff and stubborn, man-locked set
And, in my hearing, you hear its tragic drone
Rise liquidly in liquid lingerings,
Like watery words awash; like meanings said
By repetitions of half-meanings. Am I not,
Myself, only half a figure of a sort,
A figure half seen, or seen for a moment, a man
Of the mind, an apparition appareled in
Apparels of such lightest look that a turn
Of my shoulders and quickly, too quickly, I am gone?
~ Wallace Stevens ~
It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.
~ Salvador Dalí ~
Necessity is stronger far than art.
~ Aeschylus ~
Not even the gods fight against necessity.
~ Simonides ~
Necessitas ultimum et maximum telum est.
Necessity is the last and strongest weapon.
~ Titus Livius ~
Wikis are important tools for communication.
I am also Ananke at Wikipedia
User talk page
edit
Fly like lightning,
Strike like thunder,
Whirl in circles around
A stable center.
~ Morihei Ueshiba ~
All people can be viewed as in some ways ridiculous idiots and in other ways as inspiring angels.
Angels and Idiots are ever at work in this world, and the wisest angels seek to inspire others to be greater angels, and the worst idiots seek to drive fools into becoming more contemptible and ridiculous idiots than they are.
I believe that many very significant works of angels and idiots shall become more apparent for what they are in coming days and weeks and months and years. Be at ease with the graces you shall receive — and so much as possible with the troubles and burdens you will be confronted with as well.
Those who are among the wisest angels are ever willing to assert that all people are both angels with messages to be received and appreciated with grace, and idiots who have limited abilities to understand or appreciate the messages they send to one another and receive. The wise do not let one aspect of anyone's being blind them to other aspects, nor their own capacities to understand far more then others blind them to the fact that there are always many who understand far more than they about many aspects of Reality.
All people play the roles of both angels and idiots in different ways, but not all actually play some of the most significant roles available to many — of villain, coward, hero or saint — though there are certainly many who do play all, and many who will appear to play all, no matter how limited their actual intentions and activities.
Here and elsewhere, I strive to do good and be of assistance to other angels of good will, especially those who KNOW they are angels and also that they are also certainly idiots, in many unavoidable ways, and have neither pride nor shame in presenting and receiving such designations. Through wisely chosen words presented here and elsewhere, may further blessings come to many. ~ Ananke 21:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
A few notes on various uses of the terms "Angel" and "Idiot" by myself and others
editAngel is a word that has long been associated with ethereal potentials, but simply originates with a word for messenger — and we are all messengers to each other, to some extent, whether we provide others messages that can be considered good or bad. Idiot is a term that has been used derisively since ancient times — but at its base simply a word which signifies a specifiable individual person. Knowing these facts and MANY others besides, for very many years, indeed to some extent since my first few years of life, I have been someone who uses the terms Angel and Idiot in referring to friends and foes alike, but these are terms I often apply to ANYONE and EVERYONE, including myself, in many ambiguous ways. Despite the deep seated associations many people have of the one meaning something good to be praised and the other meaning something bad to be derided and disdained, these are actually among the most ambiguous terms I regularly use, and it often requires complemental or critical adjectives to actually indicate whether either of them are being used in some jovially endearing or peculiarly harsh ways.
I consider that the most contemptible and small minded of angels and idiots, very much inclined to fascist and dictatorial stances and strategies, object to such terms being applied to ANYONE, in ways that they do not accept and approve — and would seek to insist that they should be held to mean ONLY what they are inclined to hold them to mean — and other uses should be deprecated or even forbidden. Thus is the ultimate poetry and pragmatics of True Eternal Grace strongly defied and denied honor in this world, by people of very small and constrained imaginations — who seek to keep others imaginations and hopes even more constrained and bound than their own, so that they can more easily control them with prejudices, presumptions, fears and hatreds which they can inspire with distorted visions of truth, maliciously deceitful assertions and claims, and outright lies.
To what extent I have collaborators and allies in good works in this world, I seek to bless them, and I shall hope that their worth be well rewarded by the fates of the worlds, and to those who in their states of ignorance and confusion have been foes and opponents to good works, I do not seek to damn them or trouble them any more than they are already damned and troubled, but I truly hope that they too will be more blessed as awareness and appreciation of many forms of truth grows — even though those who have most heavily invested in the ways of lies and deceits shall perhaps surely suffer much loss and anguish, as their foul lies, deceits and delusions are exposed for what they have always been. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 00:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC) + tweaks
Testimonies of the Truth and Grace within Humanity
edit
There are many ancient admonitions to the wise in many profound traditions to do much good in the world as discreetly and subtly as you can, making little or no claim to the credit for it, if at all possible. Not only is this very good advice to prevent excessive pride from developing in one's transient personal self, or expectations and reliance upon the often dubious gratitude of others, but obviously there are times when the pride of others can become aroused in very dangerous and destructive ways, and they, in their deep bigotry and blindness grow actually hostile to permitting others to do good or even attempting to spread good ideas and good humour in manners they do not accept and for reasons they refuse to even try to understand. Some apparently find it extremely difficult to forgive others for attempting such efforts at encouraging others in ways of kindness, courage and grace as for various reasons they find deplorable, or far too much an imposition on their suppositions and procedures built around them.
Over the course of 7 years here I have contributed under many names, most of that time as a respected administrator who greatly admired the early directives of the founders that adminship provided no special status in determining policies. In keeping with that I joyfully asserted throughout my time as an admin: "I am one of the administrators here, which doesn't give me any special authority… only a bit more ability to keep others from misusing the privileges provided." Others in recent years have seemed to increasingly abandoned respect for the principles that administrators here are not actually supposed to be some kind of dictators of policy to be imposed upon others with intimidations and threats, but only to uphold those policies clearly developed by consensus.
This page is a preservation and consolidation of much material one rampaging administrator, on what I perceive to be a one-person pogrom of malice, disruption, and destruction has considered it appropriate to remove from the pages of my alternate accounts. Prior to the open disclosure of these accounts as my own, because of controversies resulting from reactions to them, I had simply wanted these to serve as amusing and helpful pseudonymously presented reminders of much that is good in the tendencies of humanity — which I might occasionally edit, leaving a trail of connections to inspiring and amusing material. Instead it has increasingly served as magnet for the hostility of some who seem intent on representing many of the most despotic, presumptive, oppressive and suppressive tendencies of humanity.
Throughout my 7 years of activity here I certainly have NOT sought to promote any narrow sectarian or partisan aims, but sought to broaden others exposure to diverse ideas. I have long recognized that it is often very difficult or impossible to get people with very bigoted dispositions from examining the worth and values of others outside of their own very limited circles, and I perceived that leavening some user pages on this project and others elsewhere with remarks from a wide range of inspirational sources, and all of them indicating the general worth of ALL humanity could be a beautifully subtle and helpful thing to do in spreading potential exposure to many forms of wisdom. I still believe that this is so, but my capacity to exercise that and a few other plans for subtle and anonymous contributions has obviously been greatly diminished.
Even as a very young child I was consciously aiming at finding ways to do good in the world while avoiding a great deal of personal fame and notoriety — because though many people seemed to blindly lust for it, I recognized it could clearly be an extreme freedom-reducing liability, privacy destroying burden, and a general danger to myself and those I most cherished, and all my life I have actually sought to avoid too great a degree of notoriety, and tempered the display of many of my various abilities to a remarkable degree, calling upon many of them only when clearly necessary, and preferring to remain obscure and uncredited with much that I have done.
As much of of the material I had created simply to provide such positive influences as I seek to promote is now being actively suppressed with great vigor by Cirt (talk · contributions), I here offer a compendium of much of the material he has been removing, as at least a partial record of what I had actually attempted to present and do with some of the time I had to work here, for the edification and amusement of the curious. Cirt has now taken measures to prevent me restoring any of it to any of the user pages upon which it originally existed and has declared my edits and efforts to preserve, promote and defend principles of liberty, fairness and many aspects of simple human decency innately "disruptive." I seek to disrupt nothing more than entrenched forms of unjust presumption and bigotry. I consider much of his activity to be deliberately malicious harassment, most, if not all of which is actually not consistent with any actual policies — other than those that might have been devised by cliques of collaborators who may have in significant ways exceeded their proper prerogatives, and consider my current and past efforts here a continuing declaration of the importance of the need to actively resist and oppose dictatorial tendencies to command, constrain and control human beings, with conscientious applications of non-violent Direct action, and Civil Disobedience of all efforts by anyone to improperly issue imperious commands and sanctify efforts to intimidate and oppress others into roles of drab conformity and slavery to the most vile and contemptible impulses human beings are capable of. I recognize there are far more tragic abuses of officious power and positions of trust than those being exhibited here, and I have encountered many of these as well, but I cannot let the current situations of extreme zeal to eradicate much of positive worth go unanswered by my intensive effort to preserve it, and nurture it.
As these examples attest, I obviously have a great deal of fondness for the wide applicability of the symbology of circles, the Sun, rainbows, lightning, trees and water, and quite a few other things — and find images of these often uplifting of themselves, and I hope that my presentations of ideas here and elsewhere, under many different names and guises, can help to prompt many positive thoughts and associations in the minds and lives of others.
Though primarily a page to present what had existed elsewhere, I will probably also occasionally tweak the formatting on these, and perhaps eventually do minor updates or extensions of a few of them in such ways as I might have when they were presentations on separate pages.
Abel (talk · contributions)
edit- Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew 23:33 - 39
- Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Ability (talk · contributions)
editAble (talk · contributions)
editAbraxas (talk · contributions)
edit
~ Hermann Hesse in Peter Camenzind (1904)
There is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us. Out of sounds, words, and other frail and worthless things, we can construct playthings — songs and poems full of meaning, consolation and goodness, more beautiful and enduring than the grim sport of fortune and destiny. We can keep the spirit of God in our hearts and, at times, when we are full of Him, He can appear in our eyes and our words, and also talk to others who do no know or do not wish to know Him. We cannot evade life's course, but we can school ourselves to be superior to fortune and also to look unflinchingly upon the most painful things.
~ Hermann Hesse in Gertrud (1910)
_British_Museum.jpg){kind=link}
We create gods and struggle with them, and they bless us.
~ Hermann Hesse in Demian (1919) ~
Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real.
~ Hermann Hesse in Siddhartha (1922)
Here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that Love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.
~ Hermann Hesse in Siddhartha (1922)
Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
~ Hermann Hesse in Steppenwolf (1927)
There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
~ Hermann Hesse in The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created.
~ Hermann Hesse in The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Agni (talk · contributions)
edit Time is a river which carries me along,
but I am the river;
it is a tiger that devours me,
but I am the tiger;
it is a fire that consumes me,
but I am the fire.
and to become
what we are capable of becoming,
is the only end of life.
Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task. ~ Epictetus
He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.
The Archangel Micheal
as portrayed in
"What Men Live By" (1881)
by
Leo Tolstoy
People are accountable for their actions, including the statements which they choose to make.
I value Wikiquote as a place where many statements from people embracing all manner of ideological perspectives can ultimately be put into their proper contexts, and many of the errors, omissions, extreme distortions and outright lies which often occur in social and anti-social intercourse exposed for what they are.
~ Accountability ~
Don't take it serious,
Life's too mysterious.
I KNOW THAT I AM IN MANY WAYS A FOOL. I know that in many ways I have always been a fool, and that in many ways, both apparent and obscure to myself and others, I will probably always be one. I take comfort in the fact that this awareness makes me far less of a fool than MOST people, who are often solidly convinced that they are extremely wise in many of their contentions, even when they are being most foolish.
WE ARE ALL FOOLS. The least foolish recognize this, and are as generous as they can afford to be with the foolishness of others. Some people might count me extremely foolish for asserting this, but I count anyone extremely foolish who would deny it. The most foolish of all people are always those who are most convinced that they are the most wise of all in all things, and thus most dangerously hostile towards the foolishness of others, and even the wisdom of others.
I am a fool who has worked extensively, in many ways, trying to do what good I can in this world, and helping others to do what good they can.
I am a fool who has worked under many names.
Working with only one easily discernable identity, or with just a few, I could easily be assailed from far too many directions at once, by far too many fools hostile to any ideas which differ from their own, or those which they wish others to believe, than I could easily deal with. I have simply far too many things to do, that are far more important to me than answering the arguments, assertions and objections of every other fool I encounter, and much prefer to remain free to pass most forms of foolishness by, while focussing primarily on those forms of wisdom and foolishness which I feel require the most attention and effort to address.
I do not intend to here attempt a full exposition of many of the ideas which I find important to keep in mind, but for the purposes of providing some indication of my character, to give at least a very limited indication of some of the most important views of life which actually drive me, and perhaps of some of the experiences which have shaped me into a person generally very wary of many of the assumptions people make and the largely unnecessary or even detrimental rules which they devise to constrain themselves and others.
I do not speak nor live as an advocate of any particular religious or political creeds, groups, or traditions, beyond those fundamental groupings of humanity and all living beings, and those beautiful human traditions of being honest, compassionate, and of humbly seeking truth, and of courageously seeking the best ways to present important truths to others.
I am willing to embrace what I find to be true, beautiful and worthy of respect in all creeds and all traditions, to remain skeptical of what I find dubious, and to vigorously reject what I find to be either false or foul. Some might derisively call this "cherry-picking" one's beliefs and policies, but I feel that such a practice is far preferable than indiscriminate consumption of foolish assumptions, foul attitudes and mere manure which I find in nearly all traditions, whether political or religious, materialistic or mystical, and to be a mark of personal integrity and virtuous will, as opposed to the all too common practices of herd-think and mob rule. "Cherry-picking" can be a beautiful thing to do if you want to gather of beautiful and delicious fruit for the benefit of oneself and others. Many people who will deride such activity are driven by their own flawed assumptions and personal will, and are all too often are merely engaged in merely "cherry picking" the virtues they chose to emphasize about themselves, and those people they care about most, while at the same time focussing only on the apparent faults and deficiencies of those who are in some way their adversaries or rivals, to make them seem worse than they are, that they may more easily become their victims. Such practices merely emphasize and exaggerate differences and magnify hostilities and turmoil.
I have long held that there are ultimately four crucial virtues at the core of all ethical actions and attitudes, no matter which creeds might embrace them and what assumptions of people might obscure them: Humility, Courage, Honesty and Compassion.
Humility and Courage are fundamental personal virtues necessary for the development and ultimate integrity of any human being.
Deficiencies in either produce deficiencies in both.
Honesty and Compassion are fundamental social virtues, necessary for the lasting cohesion of any society.
Deficiencies in either produce deficiencies in both.
All these 4 crucial virtues unite in a stance of meek but bold determination to do what you can with one's life for the sake of what portions of the Ultimate Beauty of Life which one can perceive. To do so with as little aggression as possible, to always be as gentle as possible and only as harsh as necessary, even against those who are inclined to be as harsh as possible, and only as gentle as necessary.
Such meekness is often misidentified with weakness, because there are so many arrogant people who are only meek in appearance and disposition when they are weak. Since earliest childhood I recognized meekness is not actually a weakness, but very often an indication of strength, and is manifest in the greatest of people as a charitableness and magnanimity even towards their worst adversaries.
All of these virtues are complementary to each other and bound with each other in various ways.
Humility — I consider to be the fundamental virtue of Awareness, an acknowledgement that one is not aware of all that one can be.
Courage — to act upon what one knows, and upon what truly believes to be the best available course of action or inaction, as the case may be, is a fundamental complement to Humility.
What I consider to be true Courage is never mere boldness, such as is often manifest by the cruel when they are confident, and even the cowardly when they are desperate, but only such boldness as is always tempered by humility and compassionate motivations.
I have been bold in many ways, but remain meek in many ways, and there recently have been confusions due to both my bold and meek aims and activities.
Though I have not used this username much in quite a while, there has recently been some suspicions and contentions about my activities which I wish to elaborate upon openly, and am thus planning to do so primarily through this account, and perhaps a few others.
I do NOT intend to be entirely open about all things under discussion with everyone, and make no pretense to such intentions. Much will remain obscured or hidden, and I conceivably could be mistaken myself about some facts, but my statements will be honest and with no deliberately erroneous statements. I also do not intend to reveal here any private communications of others without their permission, but I do intend to address some publicly made accusations and assumptions which have afflicted me, because my behavior afflicted others with reasonable suspicions, and led at least one person, at least temporarily to incorrect conclusions.
I intend to remain active here, often in subtle and not obvious ways, unless people become so hostile to my activities that they restrict them in an entirely unjust or intolerable manner.
I am still studying the situation which exists and developing ideas on how to respond to it.~ Accountability ~
Laugh and love
Live and laugh at it all!
Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history — free culture.
If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.
~ Lawrence Lessig ~
Let's not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.
~ James Thurber ~
I can but entreat you to remember it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.
~ James Branch Cabell ~
in
The Cream of the Jest
~ Robinson Jeffers ~
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies. ~ Robinson Jeffers
edit- I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
~ Evelyn Beatrice Hall ~
- At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized.
~ Eric Hoffer ~
- You may be right
I may be crazy.
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for.
It's too late to fight
It's too late to change me.
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right.
~ Billy Joel in "You May Be Right" on Glass Houses ~
It is called the truth.
~ Henri Barbusse ~
The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
I too haughty Shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any,
Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,
(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last,) the field the world,
For life and death, for the Body and for the eternal Soul,
Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,
I above all promote brave soldiers.
~ Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass ~
Truth is so great a perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would choose light for his body and truth for his soul.
~ Pythagoras ~
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Sacred, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.
~ Black Elk ~
~ Thomas Merton ~
Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.
~ Yeshua (Jesus Christ) ~
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- Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
- ~
- Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.
- ~
- Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
- ~
- The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.
- ~
- A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.
- ~
- The most important point is — and remains — not to take oneself seriously.
∴
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors.
. . .
The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act So As To Elicit the Best In Others and Thereby In Thy Self.
∵
This I know:
There are people who earnestly strive to foster and nurture the best in everyone and thus reveal the best in themselves, and there are those who strive to emphasize the worst in others, and thus foster and nurture the worst within themselves.
This I do not know:
Which are you most inclined to be?
You're nothing but a pack of cards!
Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Twas brillig and the slithy tothes,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe ;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll in Jabberwocky
In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room.
Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass
The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.
Philip José Farmer (writing as Kilgore Trout, with the permission of Kurt Vonnegut)
Alpha (talk · contributions)
edit
Malcolm H. Mac Gregor, in The Power of Alpha (2007)
It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!
Richard Feynman in QED : The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
Anchor (talk · contributions)
edit~ Walter Cronkite ~
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∽
∵
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
~ Joseph Addison ~
Anyone directed here from my accounts elsewhere: Welcome to Wikiquote!
I am also Angel 007 at Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia sites
This is a place where many expressions of the most intriguing thoughts and ideas of humankind are being gathered together. It yet needs a lot of development, so feel free to join in the tasks, if they seem worthwhile to you. ~ Angel 007 07:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Atreyu (talk · contributions)
edit
There are those who can but never return.
And there are just a few who go to Fantastica and come back.
And they make both worlds well again.
Michael Ende in The Neverending Story
Every moment
And your destination
You don't know it
Be Awareness.
Beware of Illusions.
Beware of Assumptions.
Be Aware of Mystery.
Be Aware of Life.
Be Aware.
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
Rudyard Kipling, in The Ballad of East and West (1889)
The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time.
The White Rose
All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.
Richard Francis Burton
Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
James Anthony Froude
The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret.
Terry Pratchett
All religions speak about death during this life on earth.
Death must come before rebirth.
But what must die?
False confidence in one’s own knowledge, self-love and egoism.
Our egoism must be broken.
We must realize that we are very complicated machines, and so this process of breaking is bound to be a long and difficult task.
Before real growth becomes possible, our personality must die.
G. I. Gurdjieff
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.
Robert A. Heinlein
Can the "word" be pinned down to either one period or one church?
All churches are, of course, only more or less unsuccessful attempts to represent the unseen to the mind.
Florence Nightingale
Creeds matter very little...
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
So I elect for neither label.
James Branch Cabell
Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life.
They should also govern it.
Wilhelm Reich
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
George Eliot
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Simone Weil
Do not wait for the Last Judgment.
It takes place every day.
Albert Camus
· · · Bad Wolf talk page · · ·
editRose Tyler
in
The Parting of the Ways
The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time.
The White Rose
Candor is always a double-edged sword; it may heal or it may separate.
Wilhelm Stekel
Religion is a great force — the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours.
Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards.
You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place.
You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary.
You can talk to me of the quintessential equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet you can't see the quintessential equality of all the religions.
"Hotchkiss" in Getting Married (1908)
by
George Bernard Shaw
All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.
Richard Francis Burton
Somebody, after all, had to make a start.
What we wrote and said is also believed by many others.
They just don't dare express themselves as we did.
Sophie Scholl
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Simone Weil
Balder (talk · contributions)
edit
- Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away; they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is…
Walter Cronkite
The Four Agreements (1997)
edit- The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Wisdom — A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Be Impeccable with Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
- Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
- Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
- Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
The Fifth Agreement (2009)
edit- The Fifth Agreement : A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Be Skeptical.
- Respect is one of the greatest expressions of love. If other people try to write your story, it means they don't respect you. They consider that you're not a good artist who can write your own story, even though you were born to write your own story.
- Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.
- Thomas Fuller, in The Holy State and the Prophane State (1642)
- Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.- John Newton in "Amazing Grace" in Olney Hymns (1779)
- Thro' many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.- John Newton in "Amazing Grace" in Olney Hymns (1779)
- God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.- Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer (ca. 1942). This statement, or variants of it, have often been attributed to others, including St. Francis of Assisi, but without sources. Though similar prayers may have existed, the work seems to be Niebuhr's. He never copyrighted the prayer, and it has been used in many variants, including the most common variant:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer (ca. 1942). This statement, or variants of it, have often been attributed to others, including St. Francis of Assisi, but without sources. Though similar prayers may have existed, the work seems to be Niebuhr's. He never copyrighted the prayer, and it has been used in many variants, including the most common variant:
- At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success. No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult to overcome, as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of knowledge, as much as in the improvement of laws.
- John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, in The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)
- There is not one of you whose actions do not operate on the actions of others—operate, we mean, in the way of example. He would be insignificant who could only destroy his own soul; but you are all, alas! of importance enough to help also to destroy the souls of others. ... Ye cannot live for yourselves; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.
- Henry Melvill, "Partaking in Other Men's Sins", St. Margaret's Church, Lothbury, England (12 June 1855), printed in Golden Lectures (1855)
- My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
- Adlai Stevenson in a speech in Detroit, Michigan (7 October 1952)
- To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
- Robert Louis Stevenson, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books (1882)
- Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.
- Nikola Tesla, on patent controversies regarding the invention of Radio and other things, as quoted in "A Visit to Nikola Tesla" by Dragislav L. Petković in Politika (April 1927); as quoted in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 73 ISBN 0760710058 ; also in Tesla: Man Out of Time (2001) by Margaret Cheney, p. 230
- It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity. It is when we all play safe that fatality will lead us to our doom. It is in the "dark shade of courage" alone that the spell can be broken.
- Dag Hammarskjöld, in Servant of Peace : A Selection of the Speeches and Statements of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations (1962), p. 107
- The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Nature (1836), Ch. 8
Baldur (talk · contributions)
edit
Prose Edda (c. 1220)
The wise ever choose their roles carefully wherever they find themselves, and in whatever fields of endeavor they find themselves, and strive to do what good they can, for all they can, however they can, through whatever means they can. The most corruptly foolish and lazy-minded often seem to believe that they play no other roles than those they perceive to be given to them by their names or titles or popular acclaim and most obvious forms of power — and often become such things as shrivel when exposed to the presence of the light beyond all namings — to be reviled or pitied by those who know that there is no ending or expiration to the Light of Truth and Eternity.
There is no form of error or evil that can remain forever hidden from those who ride the waves of Light and Awareness, Life, and Love in unfathomable ways beyond all mortal ken. The wisest do not expect to always be understood or accepted, even by others who are in many ways wise, but always strive to respectfully cherish, forgive, pardon and liberate the lives of others to the extent they honorably can — sometimes doing so with harsh revelations of truth, while the most foolish often seek to constrain, punish and control others to the extent they believe possible without much harm to themselves, often using gentle-seeming and pleasing ruses. Eventually all is made plain, no matter how long and how deeply the indifferent or malicious deceivers or other fools might seem to reign unchallenged, and all shall come to know much more of ALL that matters, and to realize that only by accepting of the Reality of graces beyond all their reckonings can they attain to greater and more blessed fates.
Baldur 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Killing time is perhaps the essence of comedy, just as the essence of tragedy is killing eternity.
Miguel de Unamuno in San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1933)
The naming won't work on me.
The 10th incarnation of The Doctor in The Shakespeare Code (2007) also known as Love's Labour's Won
It was not his to choose from what volume or on which page thereof he would read; accident, as it seemed, decided that; but the chance-opened page lay unblurred before him, and he saw it with a clarity denied to other men of his generation.
James Branch Cabell about "Felix Kennaston" in The Cream of the Jest (1917) - full text online
Baldur talk page
editGeorge Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman (1903)
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
in
As You Like ItWilliam Shakespeare in As You Like It
If you were just some magician, if you'd pissed off some witch, then what's she gonna do, she's gonna put a curse on you, and what's gonna happen? Your hens are gonna lay funny, your milk's gonna go sour, maybe one of your kids is gonna get a hare-lip or something like that — no big deal.
You piss off a bard, and forget about putting a curse on you, he might put a satire on you. And if he was a skilful bard, he puts a satire on you, it destroys you in the eyes of your community, it shows you up as ridiculous, lame, pathetic, worthless — in the eyes of your community, in the eyes of your family, in the eyes of your children, in the eyes of yourself — and if it's a particularly good bard, and he's written a particularly good satire, then three hundred years after you're dead, people are still gonna be laughing — at what a twat you were.
Alan Moore
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross ~
All the world loves a clown.
Act the fool, play the calf,
And you'll always have the last laugh.
~ Cole Porter ~
With foxes we must play the fox.
Thomas Fuller
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Candor (talk · contributions)
editIt is a quality that belongs, equally to the honest man and to the gentleman: to the first, as doing to others as we would ourselves be done by; to the last, as indispensable to the liberality of the character.
By candor we are not to understand trifling and uncalled for expositions of truth; but a sentiment that proves a conviction of the necessity of speaking truth, when speaking at all; a contempt for all designing evasions of our real opinions; and a deep conviction that he who deceives by necessary implication, deceives willfully.
In all the general concerns, the publick has a right to be treated with candor. Without this manly and truly republican quality, republican because no power exists in the country to intimidate any from its exhibition, the institutions are converted into a stupendous fraud.
James Fenimore Cooper "On Candor"
in
The American Democrat: or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America (1838)
Circle (talk · contributions)
editHe drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
"Outwitted"
by
Edwin Markham
Crystal blue persuasion, mm-hmm
It's a new vibration
Eddie Gray, Tommy James and Mike Vale, Crystal Blue Persuasion (1969)
Daath (talk · contributions)
editThrough wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
Proverbs 24:4 (KJV)
Is your love strong enough
Like a rock in the sea?
Am I asking too much?
Is your love strong enough?
"Is Your Love Strong Enough?" by Bryan Ferry
in
Legend - YouTube video
The Doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.
Sigmund Freud
Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery.
Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought.
That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
Michael Ende
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
William Blake
Who sings of all of Love's eternity
Who shines so bright
In all the songs of Love's unending spells?
Holy lightning strikes all that's evil
Teaching us to love for goodness sake.
Hear the music of Love Eternal
Teaching us to reach for goodness sake.
"Loved by the Sun" by Jon Anderson
in
Legend - YouTube video
Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the Fourth Dimension? Have you? To be exiles?
As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.
I don't believe that man was made to be controlled by machines. Machines can make laws, but they can not preserve justice. Only human beings can do that.
It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure.
Our lives are important — at least to us — and as we see, so we learn... Our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and search for it.
One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.
So you're my replacements — a dandy and a clown!
I suddenly realised what the old proverb meant: "To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose." It was all part of Rassilon's trap to find out who wanted immortality and put him out of the way. He knew very well that immortality was a curse. Not a blessing.
Slower! SLOWER! Concentrate on one thing! ONE thing!
I'd like to see a butterfly fit into a chrysalis case after it spreads its wings.
Life depends on change, and renewal.
There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought!
I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy of which human nature is merely a part.
We've done exactly as you calculated, haven't we?
The power cable generated an electrical field and confused their tiny metal minds. You might almost say they've had a complete metal breakdown.
People spend all their time making nice things and then other people come along and break them.
An unintelligent enemy is far less dangerous than an intelligent one, Jamie. Just act stupid. Do you think you can manage that?
We're nowhere. It's as simple as that.
I hate computers and refuse to be bullied by them!
I do tend to get involved.
Keep it confused, feed it with useless information — I wonder if I have a television set handy?
I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.
My dear Miss Shaw, I never report myself anywhere, particularly not forthwith.
Well, I'll tell you something that should be of vital interest to you. That you, Sir, are a NITWIT!
Obviously the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS always to return to Earth. It seems that I'm some sort of galactic yo-yo!
It's all quite simple — I am he and he is me!
Courage isn't just a matter of not being afraid. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.
A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting.
You may be a doctor. But I'm the Doctor. The definite article, you might say.
Would you like a jelly baby?
There's no point being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes.
Never cared much for the word "impregnable." Sounds a bit too much like "unsinkable."
Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable.
Excuse me, can you help me? I'm a spy.
Failed? No, not really. You see, I know that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years, I know also that out of their evil must come something good.
Who's the homicidal maniac?
I'm a Time Lord...I'm not a human being; I walk in eternity...
Something's going on contrary to the laws of the universe. I must find out what!
The Doctor's not here. He's at large somewhere in the complex!
Do you think I don't know the difference between an internal fault and an external influence! No, no, no, there's something going on here. Some dirty work they won't touch with their lily white hands!
If you don't stop wallowing in self-pity, I'll bite your nose.
You thought I was dead, didn't you? … You're always making that mistake.
You humans have got such limited, little minds. I don't know why I like you so much.
All right! I confess, I confess. — I confess to your being a bigger idiot than I thought.
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.
Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard.
Now drop your weapons, or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby!
I'm the Doctor. Who are you, and why are you shooting at me?
I never carry weapons. If people see you mean them no harm, they never hurt you — nine times out of ten...
To the rational mind, nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained.
That's trans-dimensional engineering; a key Time Lord discovery!
Were you trying to attract my attention?
Listen! It's the muffin man! Come on. I'll buy you all muffins.
The localised condition of planetary atmospheric condensation caused a malfunction in the visual orientation circuits. Or to put it another way, we got lost in the fog.
Where's your joy in life? Where's your optimism? … Whenever you go into a new situation, you must always believe the best until you find out exactly what the situation's all about. Then, believe the worst.
Sometimes my brilliance astonishes even me.
Someone once tried to build a machine as efficient as the brain. The only problem was, it would have had to be bigger than London — do you remember London? — and powered by the entire European grid. And that was just a human brain. Mine's much more complex.
The Key to Time is still in my possession. Rage all you like!
I'm a very dangerous fellow when I don't know what I'm doing.
I wouldn't make a very good criminal, would I?
I suppose you could say the yoke's on him if you were the sort of person who said that sort of thing which fortunately I'm not.
You know K-9, sometimes I think I'm wasted just rushing about the universe saving planets from destruction. With a talent like mine I might have been a great slow bowler.
Don't cross your bridges before they're hatched.
What can't be cured must be endured. … Oh don't listen to me. I never do.
It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for...
Why are Earth people so parochial?
For some people, small, beautiful events is what life is all about!
The illusion is always one of normality.
You know how it is; you put things off for a day and next thing you know, it's a hundred years later.
Oh, marvellous. You're going to kill me. What a finely tuned response to the situation.
You were expecting someone else?
A little gratitude wouldn't irretrievably damage my ego.
What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?
Small though it is, the human brain can be quite effective when used properly.
Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal.
In all my travelling throughout the universe, I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core. Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen — they're still in the nursery compared to us. Ten million years of absolute power. That's what it takes to be really corrupt.
Every dogma has its day.
A stitch in time... takes up space.
Love has never been noted for its rationality.
Your species has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity when trying to destroy itself.
Time Lords have an infinite capacity for pretension.
Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way.
All is change, all is movement.
There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace. We've got work to do.
I am not like you.
Who am I? WHO — AM — I?
Grace, I came back to life before your eyes. I held back death. Look, I can't make your dream come true forever, but I can make it come true today.
I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there.
The paper's slightly psychic, makes them see whatever I want them to see.
You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible: that maybe you survive.
I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own, 'cause there's no one else.
It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standin' still. I can feel it; the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinnin' at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're fallin' through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am.
I love a happy medium!
You think you know your own name? How stupid are you?
Well, you can stay there if you want! [persuasively] But right now there's this plasma storm brewing in the Horsehead Nebula. Fires are burning ten million miles wide! I could fly the TARDIS right into the heart of it and ride the shockwave all the way out. Hurtled right across the sky and end up anywhere! Your choice.
You're right: I am dangerous, I don't want anyone following me.
I've come to help; I'm the Doctor.
Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death. Except... it means I'm going to change. And you're not going to see me again... Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go … before I go, I just want to tell you: you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I!
Think you've seen it all? Think again. Outside those doors, we might see anything. We could find new worlds, terrifying monsters, impossible things. And if you come with me... nothing will ever be the same again!
You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords.
I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi gods and would-be gods; out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing... just one thing... I believe in her.
Never say never ever.
Something in the air. Something's coming. A storm's approaching...
Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden. Except for cheap tricks.
I'll tell you what then, don't... step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you?
The naming won't work on me.
The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you're the wordsmith! The one true genius; the only one clever enough to do it. … Trust yourself. When you're locked away in your room, the words just come, don't they, like magic. Words, the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm, words that last forever. That's what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it. Improvise!
I'm not just a Time Lord, I'm the last of the Time Lords.
There was a war. A Time War. The Last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost. We lost. Everyone lost. They're all gone now.
Daleks are bad enough at any time, but right now they're vulnerable. And that makes them more dangerous than ever.
There have been too many deaths today; way too many people have died. Brand new creatures and wise old men and age-old enemies, and I tell you, I tell you right now, I am not having one more death!
Black tie... Whenever I wear this, something bad always happens.
Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.
There's no such thing as an ordinary human.
I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.
People don't understand time. It's not what you think it is. … People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff.
Fascinating race, the Weeping Angels. The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess, no fuss, they just zap you into the past and let you live to death. The rest of your life used up and blown away in the blink of an eye. You die in the past, and in the present they consume the energy of all the days you might have had, all your stolen moments. They're creatures of the abstract. They live off potential energy. …… the Angels are coming for you, but listen—your life could depend on this—don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck.
We're at the end of the universe. Okay?! Right at the edge of knowledge itself! And you're busy... blogging!
I've had a whole year to tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices.
You wouldn't listen. Because you know what I'm going to say... I forgive you.
All my love to long ago.
Brilliant. Take me to your leader. I've always wanted to say that!
Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me. Well, a little bit.
I am... Spartacus.
These books are from your future. If you read ahead, it will spoil all the surprises. Like peeping at the end. … I try to keep you away from major plot developments. Which, to be honest, I seem to be really bad at.
Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark, but they're wrong, because it's not irrational. It's Vashta Nerada … It's what's in the dark. It's what's always in the dark.
Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I liked and that is not a safe place to stand! I'm the Doctor and you're in the biggest Library in the universe. Look me up.
Time can be rewritten!
River, you know my name! You whispered my name in my ear! There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could...
You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge. Remind you of someone? That's me when we first met, and you made me better. Now you can do the same for him.
I just want you to know, there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of her. That there are people living in the light, and singing songs of Donna Noble. A thousand, million light years away. They will never forget her, while she can never remember. But for one moment... one shining moment... she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe.
There are laws. There are laws of time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died.
I was told: "He will knock four times". That was the prophecy: knock four times and then... I can still die. If I'm killed before regeneration, then I'm dead. Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away... and I'm dead.
Something is returning, don't you ever listen!? That was the prophecy: not someone, something!
I don't want to go.
All of time and space; everywhere and anywhere; every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?
Can I have an apple? All I can think about — apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving. That's new — never had cravings before.
Of course you're not scared. Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of box, man eats fish custard, and look at you! Just... sitting there.
I'm the Doctor; I'm worse than everyone's aunt.
One question, just one more: Is this world protected?
You're not the first to come here. There have been so many. …
And what you have to ask yourself is... "What happened to them?" …
Hello. I'm the Doctor.
Basically... run.
There's something you better understand about me, 'cause it's important and one day your life may depend on it. I am definitely a madman with a box!
A horse and a man, above, below
One has a plan, but both must go
Mile after mile, above, beneath
One has a smile, and one has teeth
Though the man above might say hello
Expect no love from the beast below.
The Starwhale. All that pain and misery… and loneliness… and it just made it kind.
In bed above we're deep asleep
While greater love lies further deep
This dream must end, this world must know
We all depend on the beast below.
YOU — ARE — MY — ENEMY. AND I AM YOURS! You are everything I despise. The worst thing in all creation. I have defeated you time and time again. I have defeated you. I have sent you back into the Void. I have saved the whole of reality from you. I am the Doctor, and you are the Daleks!
The lost language of the Time Lords. There were days, there were many days, where these words could burn stars, raise up empires, and topple gods. … "Hello sweetie".
A weeping angel, Amy, is the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life-form evolution has ever produced and right now one of them is trapped inside that wreckage and I'm supposed to climb in after it with a screwdriver and a torch, and assuming I survive the radiation long enough and assuming the ship doesn't explode in my face, do something incredibly clever which I haven't actually thought of yet. That's my day, that's what I'm up to. Any questions?
Oh, when worlds collide!
One reality was never enough for you, Doctor. Take two — and call me in the morning!
One simple instruction: don't follow me under any circumstances.
I have a thing. It's like a plan, but with more greatness.
The way I see it, life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.
Annihilate? No. No violence, do you understand me? Not while I'm around. Not today, not ever. I'm the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm.
Hello Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe. But bad news everyone …'cos guess who? Ha! Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute? BECAUSE I'M TALKING! — Now the question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer — I do. Next question, who's coming to take it from me? — Come on! Look at me, no plan, no back-up, no weapons worth a damn. Oh, and something else: I don't have anything to lose! So! If you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship, with all your silly little guns, and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way! Remember every black day I ever stopped you! And then, and then... do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first.
The universe is big, it's vast and complicated and... ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that's the theory. 900 years, never seen one yet. But this would do me.
People fall out of the world sometimes, but they always leave traces. Little things we can't quite account for. Faces in photographs, luggage, half-eaten meals. Rings. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back.
There was a goblin, or a trickster... Or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
The box contains a memory of the universe, and the light transmits the memory — and that's how were going to do it. … Relight the fire. Reboot the universe.
Arthur C. Clarke
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Unknown Author
(often attributed to Larry Niven)
In the treatment of nervous cases, he is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dare to be naïve.
Buckminster Fuller
Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
Alexander Pope in "An Essay on Criticism" (1711)
Now and then there's a fool such as I.
Bill Trader, lyrics for "(Now & Then There's) A Fool Such as I"
- Had as yet been activated only at Wikisource — blocked there by Cirt.
~ The Fisher King ~
There are a good many fools who call me a friend, and also a good many friends who call me a fool.
~ G. K. Chesterton ~
I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore...
I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter
Because the flesh will get weak
And the ashes will scatter
So I'm thinkin' about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if you don't love me anymore.
Don Henley, in "The Heart of the Matter" - YouTube video
Galahad (talk · contributions)
edit
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
~ Alfred Tennyson ~
in
Sir Galahad (1842)
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop
And we are so amazed, we're crippled and we're dazed
A gardener like that one, no one can replace.
Elton John
in his song dedicated to
John Lennon
"Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)"
on
Jump Up! (1982)
For the dark things cannot stand the light,
The light of the Green Lantern!
— The original Green Lantern oath —
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power . . . Green Lantern's light!
— A later version of the Green Lantern oath —
- I am also Green Lantern at Wikipedia
Guy Fox (talk · contributions)
editI wear many lightly, and some very deeply indeed. So it goes.
Guy Fox 14:52, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Vladimir Nabokov in Look at the Harlequins! (1974)
The sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon’s an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea’s a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears; the earth’s a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing’s a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft.
The procession was to be in costume! There were to be Pierrots and Pierettes, Harlequins and English clowns, aristocrats and goddesses!
Baroness Emma Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel in The Elusive Pimpernel (1908), Ch. 29.
I am a harbinger of freedom, fun, and friendship, the clown's way of life.
I am a rebel clown.
"The Clown's Creed" of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
...
Heaven and hell are right here, behind every wall, every window, the world behind the world. And we're smack in the middle.
Herla (talk · contributions)
editWhat do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?
Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog.
Groucho Marx
Death must come before rebirth. But what must die? False confidence in one’s own knowledge, self-love and egoism. Our egoism must be broken.
G. I. Gurdjieff
"Only doing is magic." Properly to realise the scale of what Gurdjieff meant by magic, one has to remember his continually repeated aphorism, "Only he who can be can do," and its corollary that, lacking this fundamental verb, nothing is done, things simply happen.
P. L. Travers
There is nothing compulsory. One is not asked to violate cherished beliefs or accept any of the ideas presented. Rather, a healthy skepticism is encouraged.
Robert Fripp
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
eden ahbez
Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.
Saint Augustine of Hippo
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
...
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
Aleister Crowley
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly.
Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly.
Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it.
Without the laughter, there would be no Tao.
Lao Tsu
I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
Stephen Hawking
There's always a moment when everything changes.
Elizabeth Hand
Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird ... Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Harper Lee
The dog has not jumped down yet.
Traditional lore about King Herla
HIM (talk · contributions)
editBrowse: Categories | Films | Literary works | Occupations | Proverbs | Television shows | Themes
|
— ours is the now and here of freedom.
...
a million thousand hundred nothings seem
— we are himself's own self;his very him
...
The whole truth…
sings only — and all lovers are the song
Hope (talk · contributions)
edit- Combo with Hope Diamond (talk · contributions) (very similar thematic renditions)
Andy Dufresne
in
The Shawshank Redemption
"Do what thou wilt" IS the whole of The Law.
Always has been, always will be.
People can and do make vitally important agreements as to what must be done, and what must not be done, in the pursuits of certain aims; but they cannot rightfully insist that agreements about aims, purposes and reality can come to be treated as properly established merely because any one person or group wishes them to be established, without actual regard for the truth of matters.
Other expressions than these can and have indicated such truths as these indicate, some in ways somewhat better and some in ways far worse, in relation to the vital needs of mortal minds.
The wise can slowly and gradually or very rapidly and vividly come to realize that such declarations as these are certainly not a granting of permission for pursuit of any or all follies, especially not the ridiculously naïve or contemptibly arrogant pursuit of the unjust oppressions of others, or of attempting to make or pretend to make such absolute rules as only Nature itself can actually dictate and establish. They are only very imperfect indications and reminders of the ultimately incalculable consequences and relations of all assertions and acts, and in profound and peculiar ways to the importance of the vital virtues of humility, courage, honesty and compassion.
The wisest ever abide in ever appreciative states of Awareness, Life, and Love, and ever act with love of ALL in ALL Awareness, Life, and Love. They know that what each and all do is ever and always, precisely what each and all must do in relation to their own and other's states of awareness, ignorance and confusion about matters of Reality — and thus they perceive, cherish, criticize, forgive, transcend and bless all events and happenings with Awareness, Will, and Love. One of the most persistent counsels of the wise is ever that of Augustine: Love, and DO what you WILL.
The wise yet know that words are always imperfect and limited vehicles and indicators of thoughts, ideas, emotions and aims, but sometimes they are necessary, and often they can be very helpful, even though they never are and never can be incorruptibly reliable as testimonies of vitally important Truth. The most dangerously foolish of people often treat their thoughts, ideas, opinions, beliefs and knowledge as if they were the supreme pinnacle of wisdom, and any words they pronounce or provide as something that should be respected as excellent or even supreme expressions of wisdom by others. The profoundly wise vigorously reject such idolatry of mortal constructions, and know the deliberate and incidental malleability of all words and all meanings related to them, and treat all such assumptions as extreme folly, and declare them so to the extent they can, knowing that all statements by mortal minds and means are only relational and provisional, and always involve far more complexities of association than can ever be delineated and defined by the simplistic schemes and labeling processes of those most insistent, reliant, or even dependent upon certain forms of them.
All of any person's life can be perceived as a unique experiment in observation and expression — and the wise seek to preserve as much freedom as possible amidst points of unalterable fixity as the apparent flow of time impels, amidst the eternal distinctions and differences that are witnessed by mortal minds as changes. Ultimately, beyond all the disputes and disagreements which arise amidst ignorance and confusion, all do what must be done. The wisest ever seek to do what seems the most important and beneficial thing for them to do, at any point of their existence, and sometimes this can simply be reminding themselves and others that there are ALWAYS and forever aspects and ambiguities of reality far beyond mortal capacities for understanding, and the ultimate source and ultimate fruit of all Reality is something no mortal mind can encompass or entirely define.
In all the complexities of my words I am attempting to be simply honest. I know that my words shall never be so complete or so perfect an indication of what I would like to indicate as I might sometimes wish them to be — but I will do what I can to be truly and honestly helpful to others with them, and thus do what I must.
Even the most revered commandments and instructions given by the wise to those committed to following their directives and guidance are ultimately directives which depend upon the respect which can be placed upon the worth of them, in relation to incidental or universal situations, because they have an authority of WISDOM beyond all words — and not simply because of such value as people place upon words and titles and names, or the prejudices and presumptions they often represent, the worshipping of which is always a dangerous corruption of true integrity.
Words can become confusing, but thoughts and truths are always far more complex than words can ever indicate and it is ever the most dangerously foolish who most persistently fail to realize and acknowledge this. The counsel of the wise always recognizes many states of complexity and simplicity, in all expressions and mortal emotions, which they know can easily be misunderstood and confusing, and thus their wisest and best counsels are ever presented as directives which, at best, can state or indicate truths, opinions, and distinct assessments of both, and do not presume to absolutely judge the worth of any forms of Awareness, Life, or Love. Though the moods of mortal minds can be various, from sorrow and anger to joy and gratitude, the counsel of the wisest minds ever begin, proceed and end with the recognition of the mortally perceivable and imperceivable graces and glories of Ultimate Necessity, and a profound LOVE of the Ultimate Spirit of Awareness, Life and LOVE.~ I of the Storm ~
The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name.
Laozi
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~ Elbert Hubbard ~
IF (talk · contributions)
edit- Written in 1896 by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open.
Charles Fort
Iron (talk · contributions)
editThe presence of irony does not necessarily mean that the earnestness is excluded. Only assistant professors assume that.
Søren Kierkegaard in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
W. Somerset Maugham in Strictly Personal (1941)
Time changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of irony.
James Branch Cabell in The Certain Hour (1916)
- Jim Rhodes: You're not a soldier!
- Tony Stark: Damn right I'm not. I'm an army.
The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.
~ Robertson Davies ~
I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational.
~ James Branch Cabell ~
Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
~ Søren Kierkegaard ~
God is an Iron.
~ Spider Robinson ~
I'm a high night flier and a rainbow rider
And a straight-shooting son of a gun.
Hoyt Axton, in Joy to the World (1971)
Justice (talk · contributions)
edit
Ken (talk · contributions)
edit...
The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time.
The White Rose
- Had as yet been activated only at Wikisource — blocked there by Cirt
_-_Dettaglio_-_Foto_Giovanni_Dall%27Orto,_31-Aug-2007.jpg){kind=link}
Kronk (talk · contributions)
edit,_Part_II,_Volume_4_-_Kawanabe_Kyosai_-_overall.jpg){kind=link}
Lucifer (talk · contributions)
edit
.jpg){kind=link}
"Hesperus is Phosphorus" ~ Gottlob Frege, philosopher of sense and reference and the domain of discourse.
Lugh (talk · contributions)
edit- I can but entreat you to remember it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.
- James Branch Cabell, in The Cream of the Jest : A Comedy of Evasions (1917) "Richard Fentnor Harroby" in Ch. 1 : Pallation of the Gambit
- A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Self-Reliance: in Essays : First Series (1841)
- If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt;
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Brahma; composed in July 1856 this poem is derived from a major passage of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most popular of Hindu scriptures, and portions of it were likely a paraphrase of an existing translation. Though titled "Brahma" its expressions are actually more indicative of the Hindu concept "Brahman".
- There are very many signs that, being, is uncreated and imperishable, whole, unique, unwavering, and complete.
- In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
- In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
- Blaise Pascal, quoted in Thoughts from Earth (2004), p. 9
- Love is not consolation, it is light.
- Simone Weil, as quoted in Simone Weil (1954) by Eric Walter Frederick Tomlin, p. 47
- A pity beyond all telling
Is hid in the heart of love.- William Butler Yeats, "The Pity of Love" in The Rose (1893)
Everybody is special.
Everybody.
Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain, everybody.
Everybody has their story to tell...
~ Alan Moore ~
in
V for Vendetta
~ Isaac Newton ~
Of propositions about life. The human
Revery is a solitude in which
We compose these propositions, torn by dreams,
By the terrible incantations of defeats
And by the fear that the defeats and the dreams are one.
The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.
~ Wallace Stevens ~
Great and little cannot understand one another. But in every child born of man, Father Redwood, lurks some seed of greatness — waiting for the Food.
…
They cannot help but take the Food now. Suppose we were to resign our heritage and do this folly that Caterham suggests! Suppose we could! Suppose we give up this great thing that stirs within us, repudiate this thing our fathers did for us, that you, Father, did for us, and pass, when our time has come, into decay and nothingness! What then? Will this little world of theirs be as it was before? They may fight against greatness in us who are the children of men, but can they conquer? Even if they should destroy us every one, what then? Would it save them? No! For greatness is abroad, not only in us, not only in the Food, but in the purpose of all things! It is in the nature of all things, it is part of space and time. To grow and still to grow, from first to last that is Being, that is the law of life. What other law can there be?
…
"It is not that we would oust the little people from the world," he said, "in order that we, who are no more than one step upwards from their littleness, may hold their world for ever. It is the step we fight for and not ourselves. … We are here, Brothers, to what end? To serve the spirit and the purpose that has been breathed into our lives. We fight not for ourselves — for we are but the momentary hands and eyes of the Life of the World. So you, Father Redwood, taught us. Through us and through the little folk the Spirit looks and learns. From us by word and birth and act it must pass — to still greater lives. This earth is no resting place; this earth is no playing place, else indeed we might put our throats to the little people's knife, having no greater right to live than they. And they in turn might yield to the ants and vermin. We fight not for ourselves but for growth, growth that goes on for ever. To-morrow, whether we live or die, growth will conquer through us. That is the law of the spirit for evermore. To grow according to the will of God! To grow out of these cracks and crannies, out of these shadows and darknesses, into greatness and the light! Greater," he said, speaking with slow deliberation, "greater, my Brothers! And then-still greater. To grow and again-to grow. To grow at last into the fellowship and understanding of God. Growing. . . . Till the earth is no more than a footstool. … Till the spirit shall have driven fear into nothingness, and spread. … " He swung his arms heavenward — "There!"
His voice ceased. The white glare of one of the searchlights wheeled about, and for a moment fell upon him, standing out gigantic with hand upraised against the sky.
For one instant he shone, looking up fearlessly into the starry deeps, mail-clad, young and strong, resolute and still.
Then the light had passed and he was no more than a great black outline against the starry sky, a great black outline that threatened with one mighty gesture the firmament of heaven and all its multitude of stars.
H. G. Wells, in The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)
Merlyn (talk · contributions)
edit
Merlyn in The Book of Merlyn by T. H. White
Meta4 (talk · contributions)
edit
Moby (talk · contributions)
edit~ Herman Melville ~
True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty everything that is unfashionable.
~ Joseph Addison ~
God is an Iron.
~ Spider Robinson~
A few personal reflections upon the statement known as Hanlon's Razor, or Hanlon's Law:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" is a very remarkable and wise statement, showing a profound knowledge of important truths, and has long been one of my favorites. If the author of that statement said nothing else in his entire life worthy of note, those words alone make his contribution to the wisdom of humanity eternally memorable.
If one defines stupidity as the extreme state of ignorance, confusion or foolishness where one manifests the will to remain ignorant, foolish, or in states of confusion at least one further level of important corollaries can extend from this observation:
- Never attribute to willful stupidity, that which can adequately be explained by oblivious ignorance and confusion.
Yet, very probably the moderating statement of caution and prudence should also always be remembered, and never dismissed as irrelevant:
- Never fail to recognize that potentials for extreme foolishness, stupidity, malice, and the ultimate insanity of malevolence exist wherever ignorance and confusion dwell.
Knowing this, the wisest and greatest are ever inclined to battle in every necessary way against states of ignorance and confusion, and to avoid needless confrontation or conflict with people who are ignorant and confused.
It might be said that ignorance and confusion about cover it as an ultimate basis for all forms of human indifference, foolishness, stupidity, malice and malevolence. Not discouraged by the pervasive existence of all of these, the wisest, the noblest, and the best of people are inclined to love others so much as they can for their positive potentials, and to do what they can to try to help them build upon these — despite the ignorance, confusion, and the sheer stupidity many people often exhibit in manifesting the worst of their capabilities and inclinations. As one very great figure of history and legend declared as he suffered and faced extreme torments and death at the hands of others: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." ~ Moby 22:26, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
- This was an account at Wikipedia which I OPENLY identified as the same person as Moby on Wikiquote (used because the name Moby was already taken there) It has recently been blocked and defaced by Cirt after I revealed it to have been mine.
Some of my favorite lines by Herman Melville in his classic tale of Moby-Dick:
- "All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask."
- "All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick."
- "What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid."
Ponder Eternity and Eternal Love and you will perceive beyond the realms of Time. Spend too much time pondering the nonsense of scorn and hate and you won't see much at all. - Moby 21:58, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
All for one, one for all, that is our motto.
~ Alexandre Dumas ~
To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other.
~ Alexandre Dumas ~
Mr. E (talk · contributions)
editThe future is a series of infinitely branching possibilities. When we walk it, we walk down the most probable paths, those with the greatest likelihood of occurring. But nothing in the future is definite. Some are periods of great flux — the next hundred years or so are a wash of conflicting events.
~ Mr. E in The Books of Magic ~
NEO (talk · contributions)
edit
I'm going to show them... a world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries.
A world where anything is possible.
Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.
"Neo" in The Matrix
Nomen (talk · contributions)
edit
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet...
~ William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet ~
Notung (talk · contributions)
edit William Butler Yeats
His epigram to the book Responsibilities (1914), later used as the title of the story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (1937) by Delmore Schwartz
Nowhere to go, coming from nowhere, just being there this very moment — perfect.
~ Osho ~
Existence is a mystery, and one should accept it as a mystery and not pretend to have any explanation.
No, explanation is not needed — only exclamation, a wondering heart, awakened, surprised, feeling the mystery of life each moment.
Then, and only then, you know what truth is.
And truth liberates.
~ Osho ~
The One (talk · contributions)
edit
One thing unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
Whereby decays
Each thing save one thing: — mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes not...
We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.
OXO (talk · contributions)
edit
Be a little kinder than is necessary!
~ J. M. Barrie ~
Dream it never ends.
Winslow Leach in Phantom of the Paradise
The bridge is crossed so stand and watch it burn.
The Phantom of the Opera
(Lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgo)
I hope one day, perhaps, you will call me friend. Until that time I must remain a stranger.
~ The Phantom Stranger in The Books of Magic ~
PiXeL (talk · contributions)
edit
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
William Shakespeare in As You Like It,
(Jaques, in Act II, sc. vii)
~ J. M. Barrie in The Little White Bird (1902) ~
Quixote (talk · contributions)
edit.jpg){kind=link}
~ Anne Herbert ~
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Jerome
∞
This song is ending. But the story never ends.
Ood ∑ to the 10th Incarnation of The Doctor
in
The End of Time
Ω
∞
Rorschach X talk page
edit
This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.
"Rorschach" in Watchmen
by
Alan Moore
In reality, we are still children. We want to find a playmate for our thoughts and feelings.
Wilhelm Stekel
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
Wilhelm Stekel
Candor is always a double-edged sword; it may heal or it may separate.
Wilhelm Stekel
Religion is a great force — the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place. You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary. You can talk to me of the quintessential equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet you can't see the quintessential equality of all the religions.
"Hotchkiss" in Getting Married (1908)
by
George Bernard Shaw
He never raised his voice.
That was the worst thing — the fury of the Time Lord.
And then we discovered why —
Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden...
He was being kind.
"Son of Mine", about the 10th Incarnation of The Doctor
in
The Family of Blood
There are people that can't go to Fantastica.
There are those who can but never return.
And there are just a few who go to Fantastica and come back.
And they make both worlds well again.
"Carl Conrad Coreander" in The Neverending Story
by
Michael Ende
☤
Rumour (talk · contributions)
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- Open your ears; for which of you will stop
- The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
- I, from the orient to the drooping west,
- Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
- The acts commenced on this ball of earth.
~ Rumour in King Henry IV; Part 2 by William Shakespeare ~
- The flying rumours gather'd as they roll'd,
- Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
- And all who told it added something new,
- And all who heard it made enlargements too,
- In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.
- Thus flying east and west, and north and south,
- News travell'd with increase from mouth to mouth.
- ~ Alexander Pope ~
.jpg){kind=link}
· · · Rumour talk page · · ·
edit.jpg){kind=link}
Players only love you when they're playing,
Say... Women... they will come and they will go;
When the rain washes you clean... you'll know.
~ Stevie Nicks in "Dreams" on the album Rumours (1977) ~
This is one of the openly revealed accounts created by Kalki (talk · contributions) ~ Taliesin 00:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
WorkChoices
editI've just noticed that you went and cleaned up the tags on the WorkChoices quotes page, thank you very much for that. I did the list in a hurry so your help is greatly appreciated. Ed- 07:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikimania 2006
editI've made it back home after attending the Wikimania conferences, and to the extent I have the time within the next week or so I will try to find a few quotes to post from the available material, including some recordings I made there. There were several events and addresses I wanted to attend but missed because I couldn't be two places at once. I'm pretty sure that I will be able to add at least a bit to the Ward Cunningham, Larry Lessig, and David Weinberger pages and maybe a few others, and might find some usable photos to post to the Commons. ~ Rumour 14:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Rumour and Reality
edit
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
~ Laozi as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell ~
Poetry is an ethic.
By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
This is a slightly revised and much shortened version of an email message that I am sending out to a few of the people who seem involved in some recent matters of concern at Wikipedia, Wikiquote and the Commons and elsewhere with some SUL accounts I recently created and with some IP addresses which I have regularly used:
When recent suspicions against some of my activities began I almost immediately was reminded of an old Twilight Zone' episode by Rod Serling, where a malicious influence releases the destructive capacities of people against each other: "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." It ends with the statement:
- There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all it's own for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, is that these things can not be confined to the Twilight Zone.
I also kept in mind a saying:
- There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity. ~ Shunryu Suzuki
I am posting this message as "Rumour" and am stating that I have been a long-time contributor to the Wikimedia projects, under various names. I hope to be a recognized as a good Rumour who helps reveal the good in most people, and who is opposed to the efforts of those who would confusedly and confusingly exaggerate and magnify the worst in anyone or any group of people for any reasons which they might believe they have.
I have also edited as Accountability, and hold myself fully accountable for all of my own actions, but not for other people's impressions of them.
I would like to state that I actually was a witness to the birth of WIkipedia, in its very first days as it emerged from the earlier effort to create Nupedia all those years ago. I had always thought Nupedia was far too restrictive in its policies, and recognized immediately that Wikipedia was a much better idea which would take off and be a success in ways Nupedia never could, but I actually didn't become much involved with editing of any of the Wikimedia projects until 2003. I consider them all very worthy projects which I would never seek to harm or disrupt.
Recently I have been very busy juggling many online and offline activities and tasks, and even now do not feel I have all the time I would like to address the recent highly distressing confusions regarding some of my recently created SUL accounts and those of an obnoxious twerp who vandalizes the projects, but feel it is time to begin doing so, before the situation decays even further.
Contrary to the apparent motives of vandals and trolls, I would much rather go about mostly unnoticed in making good and useful contributions to the wikis, and have absolutely no desire to attain any of the pathetic notoriety trolls and vandals do through edits aimed at being a disruptive nuisance to other people.
Over the past few days I have only had brief periods of time to attend to matters happening on the wiki projects, and my thoughts on recent confusions have been various and somewhat scattered as I typed them up at various times. I have just gathered up and tweaked some of the more significant statements now, and leave the rest as ideas which are not of immediate importance in the matter.
I actually do believe that when one actually witnesses unusual activity, one should be suspicious — but not presumptive, and that when vandalism actually occurs one should often feel free to "block first and ask questions later" — but that one should not block when vandalism has not actually occurred, or there is no truly solid indication that it is intended.
Though I could understand and accept many of the suspicions related to some of my accounts and activity, at first I was irritated, and even at times somewhat angry at what seemed to me entirely absurd presumptions of an association of my accounts with those of a vandal. Then I realized that there could conceivably have been some logical reasons, if any of these names or similar ones had been used by vandals on some wiki in the past, which certainly was possible, or even likely.
I am confident that a thorough examination of any of these usernames will reveal no records of vandal edits from any of the accounts actually "attached" to my own. If there actually is any appearance of such a record I would definitely like to know of it, because I know that I CERTAINLY did not make any such edits EVER, and if there is such an appearance, there MUST be some other reason for it. There were several accounts with names which seemed to have been moved to "NAME(Usurped)" since in created the SUL for them, and being rather confused as to what went on with these, I am concerned that there may have been some accounts UNATTACHED to my SUL which were in some way mistaken as attached accounts.
I can understand that anyone rightfully prone to be suspicious of people using multiple accounts might easily believe that they had stumbled upon some vandal's "motherlode" of accounts until they actually LOOK at any of the edits I have actually made with ANY of these which I have actually yet used.
I eventually planned to make at least a few significant edits with all of them, very many with a few of them, and to have interesting images and quotations with links to Wikiquote, WIkipedia, and the Commons exhibited on almost of them.
I am NOT interested in sharing many personal details about myself on ANY of these accounts, and generally prefer any account I use to be entirely without any reference to my own gender, age, nationality or anything else. I would much rather have many good names be put to good use a few times a year, rather than build up an impressive edit count on any particular name. Though I am usually not much concerned about edit counts or comparing them, that I might give an indication of my long term presence on Wikimedia projects to those not clearly familiar with my activities with my primary accounts, I just tallied the edit count of a few of my most active ones and the total is well in excess of 40,000 edits. I have no clear idea, and not very much interest in how much above that my actually edit count would be if I tallied up all of my accounts on all the wikis, but I CAN STATE THAT ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THE EDITS I HAVE EVER MADE HAVE BEEN ACTS OF VANDALISM, TROLLING, OR DISHONEST VOTING.
- I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good. ~ Thomas Paine
Over the years I believe that I have at least twice been wrongly accused of being a sockpuppet of some particular editor at at Wikipedia, merely because I got involved in some petty disputes they were involved in as well, the most notable accusation being one many years ago that I was a sockpuppet of David Gerard, but I believe that this might be the first time in all these years that my most-used IPs were actually mis-identified as being those of a vandal, or any of my accounts was indefinitely blocked because of that. I am not absolutely certain that I have not had an account permanently blocked before, and believe that there might possibly have been some earlier incidents, years ago, where some account I created might have been blocked because of some false assumptions made because of the user name, but if there were any such incidents, I simply passed on without much concern about it, and do not actually know at this point what they might have been. This is DEFINITELY the first time I have encountered any major problems that greatly concerned me, where usernames I intended to make much use of were indefinitely blocked, my entirely innocent and useful edits with a few of them were rather rashly labeled the work of a vandal, or where the IPs I have used most were suspected of being the IPs of a known vandal, and any account I create with them blocked as if this absolute mis-identification were a certain and true thing, rather than an unconfirmed and absolutely false one.
Giordano Bruno, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Søren Kierkegaard, and many other writers and artists have recognized the value, and sometimes the necessity of doing work under pseudonyms, to most effectively and fully address many of the issues with which they were most concerned.
- He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows, nor judge all he sees. ~ Benjamin Franklin
On the Wikimedia projects and elsewhere I have usually chosen names with ironic, humorous, and romantic connotations and certain poetic symbolism. That the names of these accounts rarely have any resemblance at all to those which seem to be normally employed by a vandal I was associated with initially left me quite incredulous that anyone had assumed such a connection. I then found out how extensive and pernicious a vandal this was, and tempered my views.
I am a person who can agree with many different perspectives on things which will often seem opposed or even contradictory to casual or very biased observers with narrow views, but which to me seem quite complementary, compatible and consistent in many ways. Other views which they find perfectly reasonable and just I will find extremely flawed, unjust and hypocritical.
I recognize that I often have very odd and hard to explain perspectives on many things, and I usually simply prefer to not even try to explain them to others, but to act with what insight I can to do what good I can, in the best ways I can. This does not always involve attending to the most irritating or most extreme forms of foolishness I might perceive in others, but more often involves focussing on what might be ignorance or confusions in my own perspectives. I don't believe that anyone has to believe or know of things exactly as I do, nor fully agree with me or anyone else on the value of anything that we might try to indicate or express.
Reality is a complex enough affair without making false assumptions about it, or leading others to do so with lies and distortions of the truth.
Life is a complex enough affair with complex problems, without making complex rules to govern and constrain it in ways that are not clearly necessary, and give all too little regard to the truth of matters.
These two statements sum up my own attitude to two forms of error: having too little regard for others and for the truth, so as to have no regard at all for rules and agreements, and the often far more dangerous error of having too much regard for power and such rules as can be maintained by it, rather than for Truth, Justice and Liberty.
The most humble and wise know that there is ALWAYS far more going on within Reality than any mortal mind can ever be aware of, and the most courageous are not afraid of asserting this, even to those who are most often inclined to believe that they know all that needs to be known about some matter.
- Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible. ~ Richard Jefferies
I usually simply observe things far more than I actually participate in them. One means I have used to avoid attracting much notice or comment from casual observers is to simply use various identities to present various views which I consider valuable, or important to present, even when I do not entirely agree with them, and to be willing to address limited arguments in limited ways, rather than trying to elucidate to anyone the whole range of my reasons for doing the things which I do. I also can occasionally make minor changes or reversions to articles without there being even any intimation that the changes or reverts are in any way mandated by someone with greater status or standing on any project, and thus help make it more clear that they are always open to further debate.
To sum up my intentions in all things : I have long been intent on doing what I can to try to promote greater awareness of important truths and a kindlier disposition to each other among as many people as I can. I do not expect that this will always be an easy or safe thing to do, nor that all people ever will or ever should agree on all things. I do expect that most people can agree to disagree with others in civil and amicable manners, and not be presumptively insulting or suspicious against all those who disagree with them.
I have also often indicated a great aversion to the making of unnecessary or detrimental rules, even though I know that a few rules and agreements will always be necessary among most people. I have long thought some of the most important rules to value are those which indicate one should always strive to remain humble and make as few rules as necessary which constrain people's lives and capacities to communicate in respectful ways.
Not acting with too obviously strong a perspective nor too overwhelming a presence is one of the strategies I have long employed to most effectively help people find better ways to help themselves and become more willing to help each other to realize many vitally important truths and to manifest the most vitally crucial virtues.
I will close this message with a few quotes of the wise:
- Befriend whoever excels in virtue. Yield to kind words and helpful deeds, and do not hate your friend for a trifling fault as you are able. For ability is near to necessity. ~ Pythagoras
- Klaatu barada nikto! ... There must be security for all — or no one is secure... This does not mean giving up any freedom except the freedom to act irresponsibly. ~ Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
My hope and my trust is that Gandhi's words are true and applicable in this case, that the crucial truth of matters can be made clear to everyone concerned, some level of my ironic and non-malicious humor can be appreciated, and that at least some of the recent actions taken against some of my accounts reversed. ~ Rumour 23:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Train connections
editJust a note to Heidi and Nathan, in case you check out this page, and are trying to look up a few other things: The poet I spoke of yesterday was Robinson Jeffers, and the first wiki creator was Ward Cunningham. I hope things go well with both of you and you find interesting material here. ~ Rumour 22:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
- As I mentioned elsewhere on this page, Accountability is another account through which I am privileged to have been able to contribute to the Wikimedia projects. ~ Rumour 23:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Sat (talk · contributions)
editSome say that knowledge is something that you never have.
~ Kate Bush ~
Seer (talk · contributions)
editThe sustainer and the sustained, the perceiver and the perceived, the endurer and the endured.
It is a ever and always a sign of the eternal One beyond all the measures of mortal minds, and lack of it a sign of the ignorance and darkness which produce confusions, distress and turmoil.
Names and labels and all the symbols of meaning, and all the rules and the expression of laws and relationships which rely upon them must ever fade away and perish, amidst the confusions from which they arise and which they generate — but the fundamental truths and Reality of ALL things never shall and never can, but ever abide, eternally beyond all beginnings and endings of all appearances and perceptions and suppositions.
Paul of Tarsus
Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.
~ Stephen Grellet ~
Care about the beings you care about in gorgeous and surprising ways.
Color outside the lines.
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
This is your last chance.
~ Anne Herbert ~
Shanti (talk · contributions)
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~ Maurice Seitter ~
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame.
~ Alfred Tennyson ~
~ Dag Hammarskjöld ~
~ "The Silver Surfer" ~
presented by
Stan Lee
~ G. K. Chesterton ~
I cannot rest until the darkness is destroyed and the light shines into the hearts of all.
~ The Spectre in The Books of Magic ~
Spoon (talk · contributions)
edit
We need to be the change we wish to see in the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
See beyond all forms and formalities to the essential unity beyond all things and all appearances of things. Grow wiser and go forth with Grace amidst the wonderful mundanities and super-mundane wonders of ALL. Help to make Life ever more beautiful, for your self, and for everyone. ~ Stainless Steel
Only the weak succumb to brutality.
Superman
My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.
~ Meister Eckhart ~
The I with which I and you and all others see all that is ALL is not the same as the I with which ALL sees all that is.
ALL sees each I as one I, and all else can only believe or doubt or remain oblivious to the ultimate fact of matters, and cannot know whether there is or is not an ALL which so perceives.
The I with which we all perceive all that appears to be, is not the same as the I which sees beyond all appearances to all that is.
I know this.
Pierce the Veil.
~ This I ~
ALL in all is all we are.
~ Kurt Cobain ~
ALL is all Awareness, Life, and Love.
~ This I ~
~ Aleister Crowley ~
I am a guide: I am expert in contests.
~ Taliesin ~
King, beggar and fool, I have been all by turns,
Knowing the body’s sweetness, the mind’s treason;
Taliesin still, I show you a new world, risen,
Stubborn with beauty, out of the heart’s need.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.
~ R. S. Thomas ~
All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
~ Jorge Luis Borges ~
Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.
~ Jorge Luis Borges ~
Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart.
~ James Branch Cabell ~
in
The Cream of the Jest
The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy.
That State is the best governed which is governed the least.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
I must continue to bear testimony to truth even if I am forsaken by all.
Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other voices are silenced, if it is the voice of Truth.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
~ George S. Patton ~
Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves.
~ Chester W. Nimitz ~
Ideas, unlike solid structures, do not perish. They remain immortal, immaterial and everywhere, like all Divine things.
Ideas are a golden, savage landscape that we wander unaware, without a map.
Be careful: in the last analysis, reality may be exactly what we think it is.
~ Alan Moore ~
There are people.
There are stories.
The people think they shape the stories, but the reverse is often closer to the truth.
~ Alan Moore ~
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
Poetry is an ethic.
By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior,
a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities
of a man
who rejects
the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
~ Jean Cocteau ~
The World and Life are one. ... Ethics and Aesthetics are one.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein ~
Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein ~
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein ~
Once you label me you negate me.
~ Søren Kierkegaard ~
You cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.
~ Søren Kierkegaard ~
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
Thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
The law of love is in accord with the nature of man. But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.
~ Leo Tolstoy ~
As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence — as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.
~ Leo Tolstoy ~
Let no one persuade you by word or deed to do or say whatever is not best for you.
~ Pythagoras ~
Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.
~ Pythagoras ~
Arthur C. Clarke
An expression of the monistic idealism of Vedanta philosophy.
Spoon!
And isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit.~ The Tick ~
O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
of an If, as, "If you said so, then I said so;" and
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
only peacemaker; much virtue in If.
Touchstone in As You Like It by William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene iv
UFO (talk · contributions)
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For all I know we may be visited by a different extraterrestrial civilization every second Tuesday, but there's no support for this appealing idea. The extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence.
~ Carl Sagan ~
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas … If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.
~ Carl Sagan ~
We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
~ Carl Sagan ~
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system, and the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.
~ Carl Sagan ~
A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.
~ Carl Sagan ~
Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.
~ Carl Sagan ~
UK (talk · contributions)
editLife is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.
Edmond Dantès, in The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), screenplay by Jay Wolpert, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas
Unity (talk · contributions)
edit
Peter Pan in Peter Pan and Wendy by J. M. Barrie
Wikiquote:Quote of the day/November 20, 2024
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V (talk · contributions)
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V for Veritas
Veritas for Victory.
Veritas vos liberabit. — Veritatem dies aperit. — Vincit omnia veritas.
Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain, everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.
∵
People should not be afraid of their government, Governments should be afraid of their people.
∵
There's no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There's only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof.
∵
"V" in V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
∵
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant and vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me "V".
"V" in V for Vendetta by the Wachowski brothers adapted from the work of Moore
∵
I am not sure V has it right; surely in the ideal state governments and their people should exist happily together.
Fear in either direction must lead to violence.
But V has a totalitarian state to overthrow, and only a year to do it in, and we watch as he improvises a revolution.
Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun-Times
Vortex (talk · contributions)
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Vishnu (talk · contributions)
editThe supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. Intellectual truth is only one of the doors to the outer precincts of the temple. And since intellectual truth turned towards the Infinite must be in its very nature many-sided and not narrowly one, the most varying intellectual beliefs can be equally true because they mirror different facets of the Infinite. However separated by intellectual distance, they still form so many side-entrances which admit the mind to some faint ray from a supreme Light. There are no true and false religions, but rather all religions are true in their own way and degree. Each is one of the thousand paths to the One Eternal.
~ Sri Aurobindo ~
Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite.
~ Sri Aurobindo ~
To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs.
~ Sri Aurobindo ~
- Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?
Where the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats at the feast?
Where are the revels in the hall?
Alas for the bright cup!
Alas for the mailed warrior!
Alas for the splendour of the prince!
How that time has passed away,
dark under the cover of night,
as if it had never been!
- Is your love strong enough
Like a rock in the sea?
Am I asking too much?
Is your love strong enough?
∴
A horse nation all over the universe,
Neighing, they come!
Prancing, they come!
May you behold them.
∵
"The Horse Dance"
in
Black Elk Speaks
Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct.
The White Rose
We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us?
We do not know the depths of our spirit.
The mysterious path leads within.
In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.
Novalis, in Blüthenstaub (1798)
It is the final purpose
Of the world story,
The Amen of the universe.
Novalis, in Blüthenstaub-Fragmente (1798)
I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it.
~ L. Frank Baum ~
Frightened? You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe — I was petrified.
Then suddenly, the wind changed and the balloon floated down into the heart of this noble city, where I was instantly acclaimed Oz, the first Wizard Deluxe!
Times being what they were, I accepted the job, retaining my balloon against the advent of a quick getaway.
~ The Wizard of Oz ~
The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
Wyrd (talk · contributions)
editWe let the Wyrdness in.
Wyrm (talk · contributions)
editYes (talk · contributions)
editThanks.
For all that shall be —
Yes.
Dag Hammarskjöld
in
Markings (1964)
lies not in
the Yes
and not in
the No,
but in the
knowledge
and the
beginning
from which
the Yes
and
the No
arise.
Karl Barth
in
The Word of God and the Word of Man (1928)
Ÿ (talk · contributions)
edit
Wei Wu Wei
Anaïs Nin
We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.
We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal.
We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it.
Anaïs Nin
Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it.
This is a kind of death.
Anaïs Nin
Zohar (talk · contributions)
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We must believe in free will — we have no choice.
~ Isaac Bashevis Singer ~
Zorro (talk · contributions)
editThe lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.
Niccolò Machiavelli
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Π (talk · contributions)
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Ω (talk · contributions)
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For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Ω
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ꇎ Ω ꇎ