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To realize a dream, one must tear away his attention from it. -- Fernando Pessoa, A Book of Disquiet. |
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Le bonheur n'est pas un luxe; il est en nous comme nous-mêmes. [my translation] Happiness isn't a luxury; it is of us like we are of ourselves. -- Paul Louis Charles Marie Claudel, La Ville, (2e éditon 1897), Act III. |
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You're supposed to vote for the image they're projecting.
That's not surprising really. Just ask yourself, "Who runs the elections?"...
The elections are run by the same guys who sell toothpaste. They show you an
image of a sports hero, or a sexy model ... which has nothing to do with the commodity,
but it's intended to delude you into picking this one rather than another one. -- Noam Chomsky, speech delivered at the IRC, 2005. |
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Toute forme de mépris, si elle intervient en politique,
prépare ou instaure le fascisme. [my translation] Every form of contempt, if it intervenes in a political manner, prepares or installs the way to fascism. -- Albert Camus, L'homme révolté, 1954. |
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Le grand peuple pingouin n'avait plus ni traditions, ni culture intellectuelle, ni arts. Les progrès de la civilisation s'y manifestaient par l'industrie meurtrière, la spéculation infâme, le luxe hideux. Sa capitale revêtait, comme toutes les grandes villes d'alors, un caractère cosmopolite et financier : il y régnait une laideur immense et régulière.
[my translation] The grand penguin civilization had neither traditions, nor intellectual culture, nor arts anymore. Progress of civilization appeared there by its murderous industry, infamous speculation, and hideous luxury. Its capital covered, like all the large towns of that time, by a cosmopolitan and financial character: there reigned an immense and regular ugliness. |
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-- Anatole France, L'île des pingouins [Penguin Island], Book IV, "Modern Times", Chapter X, "The pinnacle of the penguin civilization", published 1908.
[my comment] A Farce of Western Civilization. Unfortunately, this is what French people (and many Europeans) think of us Americans today... read the entire book online! |
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'Tis a prime part of happiness to know how much unhappiness must prove our lot; A part which few possess! I'll pay life's tax Without one rebel murmur from this hour, Nor think it misery to be a man; Who thinks it is, shall never be a god: |
| -- Edward Young, from "Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality: in Nine Nights", excerpt from "The Consolation. Night IX." published 1745. |
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So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. |
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-- Osama bin Laden, transcript of videotape aired on Al Jazeera television station October 29, 2004, translated into English on November 1, 2004.
transcript US debt |
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L'art est une démonstration dont la nature est la preuve. [my translation] Art demonstrates what nature proves. |
| -- George Sand (Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin de Francueil, dite), François le Champi, 1850. |
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Les mots que j'emploie, Ce sont les mots de tous les jours, et ce ne sont points les mêmes! [my translation] The words I use, Are everyday words, and not at all the same! |
| -- Paul Louis Charles Marie Claudel, Art poétique, published by Mercure de France. |
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Que je m'enorgueillis d'un pareil appendice, Attendu qu'un grand nez est proprement l'indice D'un homme affable, bon, courtois, spirituel, Libéral, courageux, tel que je suis, et tel ... Que va chercher ma main en haut de votre col, ... De lyricisme, de pittoresque, d'étincelle, De somptuosité, de Nez enfin, que celle Que va cherche ma botte au bas de votre dos! [my translation] In that I pride myself of such an appendage, Understood that a large nose is properly an indication Of a man who is affable, good, courteous, spiritual, Liberal, courageous, as such I am, and as such ... That my hand is going to search out your neck, ... Of lyrical, of pictoresque, of glittering, Of sumptuousness, the Nose in conclusion, of that which Of which my boot is going to search out the low of your back! |
| -- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, le Premier acte, Scene IV, lignes 292-302, 1890 |
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Travaillons sans raisonner, dit Martin; c'est le seul moyen de rendre la vie supportable. [my translation] To work without thinking about it is the only way to make life bearable. |
| -- Voltaire, Candide ou l'Optimisme, 1759 |
| Words remain: People believe that the concepts thus denoted do so too! |
| -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche's Notebooks, Kritische Studienausgabe, Fall 1885-Spring 1886 |
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Je me souviens Des jours anciens Et je pleure; Et je m'en vais Au vent mauvais Qui m'emporte Deça, delà, Pareil à la Feuille morte. [my translation] I recall previous days and I cry; And I depart in sadness to the evil wind that carries me from one side to the other, similar to a dead leaf. |
| -- Paul Verlaine, "Chanson d'automne", poémes saturniens, 1866 |
| My only anxiety is what I can do...could I not be of use and good for something?...And in a picture I wish to say something that would console as music does. |
| -- Vincent Van Gogh, letter from London to his younger brother in Holland |
| The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. |
| -- Albert Einstein |
| Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. |
| -- Albert Einstein |
| Writing, at its best, is a lonely life ... For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has already been written ... I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it. Again I thank you. |
| -- Hemingway's Nobel Prize acceptance speech |
| Many years ago, I wrote: Love is a sacrifice without virtue. Today I would say: Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other. |
| -- Octavio Paz, The Double Flame, Love and Eroticism |
| Landscape is historical, and thus becomes a document in cipher, ... Each history is a geography and each geography is a geometry of symbols. India is an inverted cone, a tree whose roots are fixed in the heavens. China is an immense disc - belly and navel of the cosmos. Mexico rises between two seas like a huge truncated pyramid: its four sides are the four points of the compass, its staircases are the climates of all the zones, and its high plateau is the house of the sun and the constellations. |
| --Octavio Paz, The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid |
| Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. |
| -- Muhammad Ali, in "Time", 1978 |
| A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. |
| -- Muhammad Ali |
| There is one easy way to do that [reduce the level of terror] ... namely stop participating in it .... Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is not the only one, in which we organize and train terrorist armies. |
| --An Evening with Noam Chomsky, October 18, 2001, recorded at The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT |
| However it is clear from the successful armed struggle of the oppressed all over the world ... The oppressor and his allies no longer hold a monopoly on the use of force and the availability of weapons. Today national liberation struggles are won simply because the oppressor is unable to stop the oppressed from continuing an armed struggle whose continuation would cost much more to the oppressor than the benefit he receives by not giving the oppressed political independence. |
| --Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz), The Black Book, the True Political Philosophy of |