Extra   page 42

Either we all live in a decent world, or nobody does.

George Orwell

Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.

George Orwell

The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside. Quite a number of people console themselves with this thought, now that totalitarianism in one form or another is visibly on the up-grade in every part of the world. Out in the street the loudspeakers bellow, the flags flutter from the rooftops, the police with their tommy-guns prowl to and fro, the face of the Leader, four feet wide, glares from every hoarding; but up in the attics the secret enemies of the regime can record their thoughts in perfect freedom — that is the idea, more or less.

George Orwell

The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future.

George Orwell

I always disagree, however, when people end up saying that we can only combat Communism, Fascism or what not if we develop an equal fanaticism. It appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

George Orwell

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

George Orwell

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.

George Orwell

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are ‘only doing their duty’, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life.

George Orwell

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and – in spite of True Romance magazines – we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely – at least, not all the time – but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.

Hunter S. Thompson

As many critics have pointed out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today’s war on terrorism merely make the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.

William Eldridge Odom

"American Hegemony: How to Use It, How to Lose It" (2007)

We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one.

Steven Pinker

All good things have something casual about them and lie like cows in the meadow.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Ein normaler Mensch sagt: "Ich habe gerade keine Lust."

Die Menschmaschine aus der Redaktion von Spiegel Online sagt: "Ich bin ein Jetzt­gerade­keine­lust­haber."

http://www.belleslettres. ... itt-herzlos-vermieter.php

So if someone starts following me on the street and gets close enough to put their hand in one of my pockets and just continues on that way every morning I leave my house, for weeks or longer, I don't say, "Hey stranger, I'd like to make an argument why you should afford me some privacy tomorrow." I'd likely say, "Wtf person, you're being the kind of weird that gets the police called on people. Step back. Or better yet, go away to somewhere that I can't see you." But hey, this is the Internet, so let's just all stop thinking as though this all has anything to do with real life.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10516755

See, capitalism is not fundamentally racist -- it can exploit racism for its purposes, but racism isn't built into it. Capitalism basically wants people to be interchangeable cogs, and differences among them, such as on the basis of race, usually are not functional. I mean, they may be functional for a period, like if you want a super exploited workforce or something, but those situations are kind of anomalous. Over the long term, you can expect capitalism to be anti-racist -- just because its anti-human. And race is in fact a human characteristic -- there's no reason why it should be a negative characteristic, but it is a human characteristic. So therefore identifications based on race interfere with the basic ideal that people should be available just as consumers and producers, interchangeable cogs who will purchase all the junk that's produced -- that's their ultimate function, and any other properties they might have are kind of irrelevant, and usually a nuisance.

Noam Chomsky

Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'.

Stephen Colbert