Authority V

"No doubt you know that Galileo had been convicted not long ago by the Inquisition, and that his opinion on the movement of the Earth had been condemned as heresy. Now I will tell you that all things I explain in my treatise, among which is also that same opinion about the movement of the Earth, all depend on one another, and are based upon certain evident truths. Nevertheless, I will not for the world stand up against the authority of the Church. ...I have the desire to live in peace and to continue on the road on which I have started."
--René Descartes,
Letter to Marin Mersenne (end of Feb., 1634) as quoted by Amir Aczel, Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science (2003)

Bread

"It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it. And I am not being frivolous here, either. Something very sinister happens to the people of a country when they begin to distrust their own reactions as deeply as they do here, and become as joyless as they have become."
--James Baldwin,
"The Fire Next Time" (1963)

Listen III

"Mankind will be forever doomed to destruction, if we continue to ask for the truth but then... refuse to listen."
--"The Outer Limits"
episode "To Tell The Truth" (Season 4)

Crisis

"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."
--Henry Kissinger,
as quoted in The New York Times Magazine, June 1, 1969

Lost IV

"I only know that all is lost, and that nothing can help me unless I inherit money, strike oil or go to work."
--Will Cuppy,
"How To Be A Hermit" (1929)

Vocational

"The United States ... celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs."
--Chris Hedges,
"Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System" (Article)

Curiosity II

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day."
--Albert Einstein,
"Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" Life Magazine (May 2, 1955)

Commonplace

"No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace."
--H.P. Lovecraft,
"Ex Oblivione"

Active

"I've arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago. Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically."
--Mort Sahl

Sealed II

"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed."
--Winston Churchill (1910)

Belief V

"[B]elief is the death of intelligence."
--Robert Anton Wilson

Hundred II

"Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it."
--Andrew Young

Team II

"I always wanted to get into politics, but I was never light enough to make the team."
--Art Buchwald

Memories II

"Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door."
--Saul Bellow,
"Mr. Sammler's Planet" (1970)

Tainted

"[We should] apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization, and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."
--Margaret Sanger,
Speech, "My Way to Peace," January 17, 1932

Tree II

"Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop."
--Rumi

Energetic

"He is energetic only in evading responsibility."
--Isaac Asimov,
"Foundation" Series, Part V, "The Merchant Princes"

Antagonist II

"Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known & seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error."
--Thomas Jefferson

Pillar II

"Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates."
--Benjamin Franklin,
 "On Freedom of Speech and the Press", Pennsylvania Gazette (17 November 1737).

Real IV

"Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges."
--George Orwell

Tomorrow

"In San Francisco - life goes on. Hope rises and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. The sound of music floats down a dark street. A young girl looks out a window and wishes she were married. A drunk sleeps under a bridge. It is tomorrow."
--Hunter S. Thompson,
"The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967"

Empaths

"Empaths did not come into this world to be victims, we came to be warriors. Be brave. Stay strong. We need all hands on deck."
--Anthon St. Maarten

Gotten

"If you do what you've always done,
you'll get what you've always gotten."
--Tony Robbins

Entangled

"Fanatics think that their single-minded principles qualify them to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull they rush at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; they exhaust themselves and are beaten. They get entangled in non-essentials and fall into the trap set by cleverer people."
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
"Letters and Papers from Prison"

Productivity

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
--Sarah Palin

Monument IV

"Live a life as a monument to your soul."
--Ayn Rand

Celebrates

"A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it."
--Lewis H. Lapham

Fables

"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth--often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable."
--Hypatia of Alexandria

Modern II

"One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,
"Cold Turkey" (Essay)

Mountains II

"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."
--Steve Jobs

Safeguard III

"As Dr. Sigmund Freud has observed, it can not even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime."
--Albert Jay Nock,
"Our Enemy, The State" (1935)