Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Demur

 Much madness is divinest sense
    To a discerning eye;
    Much sense the starkest madness.
    'Tis the majority
    In this, as all, prevails
    Assent, and you are sane;
    Demur, you're straightway dangerous ,
    And handled with a chain.
        Emily Dickinson, Poems, XI. (Ed. 1891).

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Criminals

"Criminals do not die by the hands of the law.  They die by the hands of other men."
--Maxims for Revolutionists, by George Bernard Shaw

Monday, April 28, 2014

Compassionate

"It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost."
--M.N. Rothbard

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Consequence

"The person who kills for fun is announcing that, could he get away with it, he'd kill you for fun. Your...life may be of no consequence to anyone else but is invaluable to you because it's the only one you've got. Exactly the same is true of each individual deer, hare, rabbit, fox, fish, pheasant and butterfly. Humans should enjoy their own lives, not taking others'."
--Brigid Brophy

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Rebel II

"What is a rebel? A man who says no."
--Albert Camus

Friday, April 25, 2014

Room

We should, I believe, beware of the pitfalls described by Taine: "Imagine a man who sets out on a voyage equipped with a pair of spectacles that magnify things to an extraordinary degree.  A hair on his hand, a spot on the tablecloth, the shifting fold of a coat, all will attract his attention; at this rate, he will not go far, he will spend his day taking six steps and will never get out of his room."

We have to get out of the room.

--Robert F. Kennedy, January 4, 1967

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Destructive

And the effects of the shortage of meaningful employment are reinforced by a welfare structure which is frequently destructive both of individuals and of the community in which they live.

More basically, welfare Itself has done much to divide our people, to alienate us one from the other. Partly this separation comes from the understandable resentment of the taxpayer. helplessly watching your welfare rolls and your property taxes rise.  But there is greater resentment among the poor, the recipients of our charity. Some of it comes from the brutality of the welfare system itself: from the prying bureaucrat, an all-powerful administrator deciding at his desk who is deserving and who is not,  who shall live another month and who may starve next week.

--Robert F. Kennedy, January 21, 1966

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Intolerable

The poor man's conscience is clear; yet he is ashamed. He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind takes no notice of him: he rambles and wanders unheeded.

In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market...he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar.

He is not disapproved, censured or reproached: he is only not seen. To be overlooked and, to know it, are intolerable. If Crusoe on his island had the library of Alexandria, and a certainty that he should never again see the face of man, would he ever open a volume?

--John Adams

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Families

"We have dealt with female-headed families not by putting the men to work but by giving the mothers and children welfare.  They might have wanted fathers and husbands; we have given them checks."
--Robert F. Kennedy, May 19, 1968

Monday, April 21, 2014

Dependency

"But the root problem is in the fact of dependency and uselessness itself.  Unemployment means nothing to do--which means nothing to do with the rest of us.  To be without work, to be without use to one's fellow citizens, is to be in truth the Invisible Man of whom Ralph Ellison wrote."
--Robert F. Kennedy, May 19, 1968

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Values II

"Out of 5.8 billion people in the world, the majority of them are certainly not believers in Buddhism. We can't argue with them, tell them they should be believers. No! Impossible! And, realistically speaking, if the majority of humanity remain nonbelievers, it doesn't matter. No problem! The problem is that the majority have lost, or ignore, the deeper human values - compassion, a sense of responsibility. That is our big concern."
--The Dalai Lama in Time, December 1997

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Eternal II

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.  It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government."
--Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

Friday, April 18, 2014

Already

"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already...What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short  time they will know nothing else but this new community.'"
--Adolf Hitler, November, 1933

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Strict

"At this moment, America's highest economic need is higher ethical standards -- standards enforced by strict laws and upheld by responsible business leaders."
--George W. Bush, corporate responsibility speech - July 9, 2002

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Authority III

1st graffitiist: QUESTION AUTHORITY!
2nd graffitiist: Why?

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Senior II

"This increase in the life span and the number of our senior citizens presents this Nation with increased opportunities: the opportunity to draw upon their skill and sagacity--and the opportunity to provide the respect and recognition they have earned.  It is not enough for a great nation merely to have added new years to life-- our objective must also be to add new life to those years."
--John F. Kennedy, Special Message to Congress 1963.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Earnings

"Earnings can be pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them."
--Warren Buffett 1930-, American Investment Entrepreneur

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Ancestors

"My ancestors were Puritans from England. They arrived here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time."
--Garrison Keillor (1942- )
American author, humorist, musician, and radio personality

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Indolent

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.  The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
--John Philpot Curran:
Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808)
as quoted in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, NY, 1953, p 167
and also in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Boston, 1968, p 479

Friday, April 11, 2014

Dinner II

"How can there be Peace, in the World, when there is violence at the dinner table?!"
--Donald Epstein, D.C.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Headless

"Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone and as irrational as a headless hen."
--Ambrose Bierce

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Madness II

"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams -- this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness -- and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"
--Miguel de Cervantes, "Man of La Mancha"

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Corporation

Corporation, n., An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
--Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914,
American columnist and writer of horror stories,
The Devil's Dictionary 1906

Monday, April 07, 2014

Forward

"The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines."
--John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching

Sunday, April 06, 2014

No

"God has no religion."
--Mahatma Gandhi.

Saturday, April 05, 2014

Say II

"Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you're told."
--Dave Barry

Friday, April 04, 2014

Perfect II

Don't wish for perfect health. In perfect health, there is greed and wanting. So an ancient said, " Make good medicine from the suffering of sickness."

Don't hope for life without problems. An easy life results in a judgmental and lazy mind. So an ancient once said, "Accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life".

Don't expect your practice to be clear of obstacles. Without hindrances the mind that seeks enlightenment may be burnt out. So an ancient once said, "Attain deliverance in disturbances".

--Zen Master Kyong Ho [1849-1912], in Thousand Peaks

Thursday, April 03, 2014

Rather

"Most people would rather die than think: many do."
--Bertrand Russell"

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Directly

"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to decadence without the usual interval of civilization."
--Georges Clemenceau

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Ascribe

"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for war falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians."
--Wilhelm Reich: