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On truth's path, wise is mad, insane is wise.
In love's way, self and other are the same.
Having drunk the wine, my love, of being one with you,
I find the way to Mecca and Bodhgaya are the same.
If your heart is broken, don't try to fix it, they work better that way.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
From inside a hamster wheel looks like a career ladder.
Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.
Nocturnal
Can I ever write, a poem, to both recite - the song of my heart, and to recount - the epic of my might? I doubt... Can I ever compose such verse, in this solid dark, in this dominant night? I doubt... For I happen to be - a heap of cold, discarded ash - concealing the seeds of all revolts - inside. And, I happen to be A peaceful sea - carrying the roars of all storms - underneath its quiet sight. And, I am a frozen lake - hiding the flames of all faiths - beneath its lifeless face. Can I ever write - such poem? Can I ever compose such verse?"Nocturnal" (1955)
In An Instant
In a slight stroke of your hands, it is the whole world that I comprehend. In the mere thought of you, it is the entirety of eternity that I attend: flowing, nude, content. I stream, I shine, I rain. I am the heavens; I am all the stars; I am this Earth. I am also that golden thicket of wheat, expecting the clusters of scented seed, in the green lake of its joyous dance. I traverse you, like a lightening crossing the night. I blaze. And I then melt."In An Instant"
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart.
Every moment is all the things that have happened before and all the things that are going to happen, and...the way all those things look at one point on their way along a line.
Donât ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
If you look at the countries of the world and ask how are they dealing with climate change â probably our biggest challenge as a species â one of the worst records is in the US, the richest country, and one of the best, maybe the best, is in Bolivia, the second-poorest country of South America. Itâs striking that countries that have large indigenous populations are at the forefront of this battle. They are pressing very hard for what is often called ârights of natureâ but should be called âright to survivalâ.
Still, in the universities or in any other institution, you can often find some dissidents hanging around in the woodworkâand they can survive in one fashion or another, particularly if they get community support. But if they become too disruptive or too obstreperousâor you know, too effectiveâthey're likely to be kicked out. The standard thing, though, is that they won't make it within the institutions in the first place, particularly if they were that way when they were youngâthey'll simply be weeded out somewhere along the line. So in most cases, the people who make it through the institutions and are able to remain in them have already internalized the right kinds of beliefs: it's not a problem for them to be obedient, they already are obedient, that's how they got there. And that's pretty much how the ideological control system perpetuates itself in the schoolsâthat's the basic story of how it operates, I think.
Man wants to achieve greatness overnight, and he wants to sleep well that night too.
We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?
I bought a seven dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring.
If you can read this, thank a teacher.
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
Every powerful state relies on specialists whose task is to show that what the strong do is noble and just and, if the weak suffer, it is their fault.
In the West, these specialists are called "intellectuals" and, with marginal exceptions, they fulfill their task with skill and self-righteousness, however outlandish the claims, in this practice that traces back to the origins of recorded history.
Maybe young students must ask their parents the answer to this question. They should ask the principals of schools and colleges, elderly neighbours, relatives, friends, and even the strangers on the road. Once we all start asking ourselves about our apathy, maybe a few hearts will be stirred.
Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people.
War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.
It is hard to have patience with people who say "There is no death" or "Death doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you.
No machine can replace the human spark: spirit, compassion, love and understanding.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours? And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me that you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell.
Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don't want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism
is always a sign of things no ears have heard,
no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets
the bone."The Ways We Touch"
As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. [...] This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion."The Descent of Man" (1871)
Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.
There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.
Forward!foreword of "The Pogo Papers" (1953)
[..] any writer who adopts the totalitarian outlook, who finds excuses for persecution and the falsification of reality, thereby destroys himself as a writer. There is no way out of this. No tirades against âindividualismâ and the âivory towerâ, no pious platitudes to the effect that âtrue individuality is only attained through identification with the communityâ, can get over the fact that a bought mind is a spoiled mind. Unless spontaneity enters at some point or another, literary creation is impossible, and language itself becomes something totally different from what it is now, we may learn to separate literary creation from intellectual honesty. At present we know only that the imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity. Any writer or journalist who denies that fact â and nearly all the current praise of the Soviet Union contains or implies such a denial â is, in effect, demanding his own destruction."The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned."The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."Nineteen Eighty-Four"
[..] an earnest purpose finds time or makes time. It seizes on spare moments, and turns large fragments of leisure to golden account. A man who follows his calling with industry and spirit, and uses his earnings economically, will always have some portion of the day at command; and it is astonishing how fruitful of improvement a short season becomes, when eagerly seized and faithfully used. It has often been observed, that they who have most time at their disposal profit by it least. A single hour in the day, steadily given to the study of an interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
No individual gets up and says, I'm going to take this because I want it. He'd say, I'm going to take it because it really belongs to me and it would be better for everyone if I had it. It's true of children fighting over toys. And it's true of governments going to war. Nobody is ever involved in an aggressive war; it's always a defensive war - on both sides.
My dear,
Have you noticed how those who move, move fast? And those who donât, just stand still; motionless?
Yes, you can go ahead and rant to me about how an object in motion stays in motion, and how an object at rest stays at rest. But, I think thereâs more to this than physics.
I think those in motion have seen something the others have not; their imprisonment.
While those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
Truly yours,
Rosa Luxemburg
I could not find a source for this (yet)
The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself.
There are perfectly obvious processes of centralization of control taking place in both the political and the industrial system. As far as the political system is concerned in every parliamentary democracy, not only ours, the role of parliament in policy formation has been declining in the years since WWII as everyone knows and political commentators repeatedly point out. The executive, in other words, become increasingly powerful as the planning functions of the state become more significant. The house Armed Services Commitee a couple of years ago described the role of Congress as that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle, who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe, but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and hands over the allowance. And careful studies of civil military decisions since WWII show that this is quite an accurate perception. Senator Vandenberg 20 years ago expressed his fear that the American chief executive would become "the number one warlord of the earth". That has since occurred. The clearest decision is the decision to escalate in Vietnam in February 1965 in cynical disregard of the expressed will of the electorate. This incident reveals I think with perfect clarity the role of the public in decisions about peace and war. The role of the public in decisions about the main lines about public policy in general, and it also suggests the irrelevance of electoral politics to major decisions of national policy.
Unfortunately you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place.
The corporate executives and the corporation lawyers and so on who overwhelmingly staff the executive, assisted increasingly by a university based mandarin class, these people remain in power no matter whom you elect and furthermore it is interesting to note that this ruling elite is pretty clear about its social role.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.
People who are willing to rely on the government to keep them safe are pretty much standing on Darwin's mat, pounding on the door, screaming, 'Take me, take me!'Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery
After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.
In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.
We shall never cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.