Blog: Quotes

Words of Others I

I asked him whose food it was. He said it was free. "Yes, but who donated it? Who's laying it on?" "It's free because it's yours," came a reply.


A lesser known aspect of predators is that they protect species lower in the food chain, and allow ecological niches to exist that provide habitats for species that would otherwise not be able to live in the area.


Sun Tzu, whose name was Wu, was a native of Wu. He excelled at military strategy but dwelled in secrecy far away from civilization, so ordinary people did not know of his ability. Wu Tzu-hsu [King Ho-lu's advisor], himself enlightened, wise, and skilled in discrimination, knew Sun Tzu could penetrate and destroy the enemy. One morning when he was discussing military affairs he recommended Sun Tzu seven times. King Ho-lu said: "Since you have found an excuse to advance this shih, I want to have him brought in." He questioned Sun Tzu about military strategy, and each time that he laid out a section of his book the king could not praise him enough. - Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yueh


The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people.

And today's society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.

The only requirements in modern industrial society are a moderate amount of intelligence, and most of all, simple OBEDIENCE.


It was dubbed the Stork Derby by the media, and the strange contest quickly became national and international news. Attempts by the Supreme Court of Canada to invalidate the will proved unsuccessful, mainly due to the document's meticulous preparation, and excited copywriters began to feverishly speculate about who might claim the cash.


Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.


Violence: This can be avoided, if there is a will for it.


Intollerance is the first sign of inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas a truly profound education breeds humility.


A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country.


Mongols are fanatics. They adore the Dalai Lama and obey him blindly. If he tomorrow orders them go to war against the Chinese, if he urges them to a bloody revolution, they will all like one man follow him as their ruler. China's government, which fears the Mongols, hooks on to the Dalai Lama. ... There is calm in Tibet. No ferment of any kind is perceptible. - Sven Heddin 1909


The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit.


Most people fail to realize that 7/22 was an act of desperation, in part because they lack the intelligence and knowledge to draw the inevitable conclusion that the demise of the European race is imminent.


Anything that is right for a group to do is right for one person to do.


Being tried in a court set up by war criminals, there can be no justice there.


We are the only hope for the survival of Israel.


ON EDUCATION (probably to be moved to its own article)

Neither do I believe that education raises intelligence, this is another Cultural Marxist fantasy, one it shares with classic communism, as Stalin and his buddies believed that educating the underclasses was going to turn Russia into a nation of super people. It didn't work then, and it will not work now.


We're trying to educate your child for the third job and the fourth job and their fifth job, not just for the first job. So we want to give your child certain habits of mind, certain ways of asking questions, of sorting fact from fiction, of analyzing information and data, that can be adapted to jobs that we don't even know exist yet. And so how do we get that complex of skills? It can be in a variety of different majors or concentrations. How to deal with ambiguity, moral and ethical reasoning, how to adapt to a changing job market and changing interests of their own. You work hard to do the best you can do (the best that people have been recorded to have done, like a Willy Mays catch), but the way you stay there is to try and improve that tomorrow, and I think we have to do that with our education.


Specialization is for insects.


The arms embargo was void as a matter of international law, to the extent that the embargo interfered with arms aquisition by Bosnians who were potential genocide victims.

The protocol also recognizes "the inherent right to individual or collective self-defence" and to "self-determination of all peoples."


Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded by servility.


Authoritarian regimes create forces which oppose them by pushing against a people's will to truth, love and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce further resistance.


For knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow until everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.


Crisis is not negative, it is the only time you can apply real social change.


First, If any man declare his judgement in the things of God contrary to the Clergy's report, or the minds of some high Officers, they are cashiered, imprisoned, crushed and undone, and made sinners for a word, as they were in the Popes and Bishops days ; so that though their names be cast out, yet their High Commission Court Power remains still, persecuting men for conscience sake, when their actions are& unblamable. ...

Fourthly, if we go to the lawyer, we find him to sit in the conqueror's chair though the kings be removed, maintaining the kings’ power to the height; for in many courts and cases of law the will of a judge and lawyer rules above the letter of the law, and many cases and suits are lengthened to the great vexation of the clients and to the lodging of their estates in the purse of the unbounded lawyer. So that we see, though other men be under a sharp law, yet many of the great lawyers are not, but still do act their will as the conqueror did; as I have heard some belonging to the law say, "What cannot we do?"


The McCarthy Period, as its euphemistically referred to showed quite clearly what happened to the loner in the face of centralized oppression: thousands of people were quietly pulled from their jobs while their colleagues stood idly by or replaced them in an effort to hold onto what they had.


Their powers stem from a revolution worked by the people.


Having successfully brought the column to a halt, the man climbed onto the hull of the buttoned-up lead tank and, after briefly stopping at the driver's hatch, appeared in video footage of the incident to call into various ports in the tank's turret. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a short conversation with a crew member at the gunner's hatch. After ending the conversation, the man descended from the tank. The tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was still standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leapt in front of the vehicle once again and quickly re-established the man–tank standoff.


Perhaps the most interesting part of his final post, however, was the observation that the United States is no longer a nation of laws; Ball described what he calls the ‘second set of books,’ which is essentially the collection of policies, procedures, and protocols that courts and executive agencies rely upon. ...

My assessment of this situation, however controversial it may be, remains very clear: the great faceless enemy that opposes us, irrespective of our country of origin, is the institution of government.

Over time, this institution has inserted itself into nearly all aspects of life, such that a man cannot so much as enjoy a pint of beer, discipline his children, ride on the train, go to the doctor, open a bank account, apply for a job, go fishing, or watch a sporting event without the heavy hand of government being involved.

This is a beast that feeds on citizens; the more it feeds, the larger it becomes and the hungrier it gets. Of all the solutions out there, including armed conflict, civil disobedience, self-immolation, active democracy, etc., the only one that truly destroys the beast is starving it– take away the feast of productive citizens and accelerate its collapse.


Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright. And do not bother trying to argue with me that there is no Second Set of Books. I have my own copies at home. Or at least a good hunk of the important part of it.


The Jaffrey Police Department Policy and Procedures Manual states that if a wife says she does not want her husband arrested, the police are to ignore her, arrest the husband, and get with the prosecutor to see what they can work out.


The only way to avoid a game is to stop playing it.


We return to the silent - crowded - uptight sidewalks with our pockets full of absurdity and compromise between cowardice and illusion.


Labelling someone's action as domestic violence in America in the 21st Century is akin to labelling someone a Jew in Germany in the 1930's.


In the epilogue chapter of the 20th Anniversary Edition of her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty related why she resigned as the first president of the National Organization of Women in 1970. Betty wrote that she "was unable to openly fight the man haters and unwilling to front for them anymore ..."


The East German secret police, the Stazi, had 25% of the population on record as informers.


It's more valuable if the people write it.


Power is the ability to define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner.


Do not let them make me a madman.


Violent emprires are at their height when they don't have to use their power against their opponents. They're at their end when they have to use it constantly.


Before her parents' denunciation and imprisonment, Chang had unquestioningly supported Mao and criticised herself for any momentary doubts. But by the time of his death, her respect for Mao, she writes, had been destroyed. Chang wrote that when she heard he had died, she had to bury her head in the shoulder of another student to pretend she was grieving.


Such a jackboot on one's throat creates atomized people, which contributes to deep despair and depression.


Immaturity is merely the price of that rejuvenation of the white race which is taking place on American soil.


It seemed dreary in the contrast to the fresh glimmer of the star, to be hunting a broken bowl and trying to put it together.


Picasso's later representations, then, in which the self-referential Minotaur requires the gentle guidance of a child is ironic.

The Minotaur is miserably taking part in the human desire of drinking.


The same happens with a watch. It will go more or less well; but if it goes at all it is not so bad. The worse begins the moment it falls into the hands of a watchmaker ... His manipulations will rob it of its purity, and this will never return ...


He was fresh from university and was equipped with only a rifle, a camel and a uniform. His only luxuries were a few books and a Christmas hamper sent by his mother from Fortnum and Mason.

The youthful Cromer might have been a hedonistic, spendthrift young army officer, but by the age of 42 he was ready for huge responsibilities.


The public should be ready, and be happy when science changes its minds and the story changes ...


Everybody knows that everyone is lying.


m (insert here)


You're building a table, you're building a kid at the same time.


Fit in. You'll be happier.


Words are more important than deeds. You can't govern 180 million people by doing things. You can only do it by rhetoric.


A child entering this world must sit in another's chair, eat food from another's plate, sleep in another's bed. Only this way can you find your place.


To chose one thing means to give up another.


When it looks hopeless a decision's what you need.


All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.


He's always engaged substantively in our discussions. It will now be very important to hear him speak forthrightly.


If you don't have personal integrity, you can't be smart enough to overcome that. You can't be good enough at anything to overcome that. You must have a high level of personal integrity first and foremost.


The concept of "era" in the traditional sense is disappearing - or has disappeared - in the 21st Century.


When you pirate a product and the resources are not channeled back to that person who created the product, he is losing out on creating a new product for you tomorrow. So you are the loser. Tomorrow you will not have another product.


If you don't have that mirror to see yourself, I think you are lost.


insert Kairostami


They simply kept trying to teach me at every moment, "Look what you keep losing and what you could be gaining." One cannot gain, if one is not willing to lose something.


Money will drive what the public sees.


The genius thing we did was not give up.


Despair is the conclusion of fools.


There are plenty of rules once you invent them.


We realize we are still apart.


They pass by the castle of Elsinore. The German savant says, "That castle has nothing extraordinary about it." The Danish psychic replies, "Yes, but if you say it's Hamlet's castle, then it becomes extraordinary." Elsinore, that's real. Hamlet, that's imaginary. Imaginary: certainty; Real: uncertainty.


I'm hard on her and she's hard on me. It works for us. It works in the dynamics of our relationship.


The prism through which we see reality is our partisan identity.


Our Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights recognizes the right to defend one's self as a fundamental human right - and to do so with a weapon is something the government of the United States cannot take away.


Cash insulates a company in a bad way. Innovation doesn't happen as much. It's inefficient to have lots of insurance, and that's what lots of cash does. Insurers like it because it buffers from bankruptcy.


Wherever there is power there is subversion.


We have abandoned the sea, mountains, and rivers, only consuming their bounty by means of enormous distribution systems. We go to supermarkets and convenience stores and pay money to receive news of nature.


This place was wrong. It's intentions were pure, but its methods were cruel.


The people who have gotten me through in my life are the weirdos and the poets. The rebellious women and the activists. They were considered the riffraff by the people in power, and they're the ones that make history.


The chaos and the dynamism have some connection. It's not that riots are a good thing. That's the wrong reading. But rather to understand the costs of trying to remove all risks from our lives.


Lots of people in China right now trying to buy back things that mean something to them.


But then you can't do them, because they're lies. Once you know something, then it becomes a device. And once it's a device, it's frozen.


That's merely discrimination. You wouldn't call that ageism? You have no judgment against old people outside of your business hiring.


The biggest champions fail the most. You fail thousands of times in practice to win one championship.


Making a profit is an extremely important goal. Without a stable income, you can't contribute to society. So working hard each day to ensure a profit is the number one priority. But once you have that, it is also important to think about how you can contribute to the community. If local society collapses, so does your business.

If you only pursue profit, something has to be sacrificed. If you look just at the material value of a product, you end up cutting corners in order to increase profits. That's really your only option.

Increasing pure profit would mean a drop in service, and it would also affect chefs, gardeners, and the many other experts who create the inn's (ryokan's) traditional atmosphere.

A relationship matures slowly over many years of use. It would be very difficult to take any one element and try to recreate it somewhere else.

At that time (1800s Meiji Japan) there was no guarantee that the nation would protect individuals or their companies. So from time to time merchants would band together to appeal to the government, or else they might cooperate to help local society and regions grow. That was a driving force at the time.

Japan has many more long-lived companies than any other country.


It's more to do with that they're all in the same place, that makes them into a family.


You can't repeat this, though. Doing the same container over and over again would kill its charm.


I will do as if I was not there.


If you tell me who your heros are, I can tell you how you're going to turn out.


If you're going to start a company, it takes so much energy, it should be something that will [do whatever for you] that it will overcome your feeling of risk.


Even when the tests seem pointless, persistence will lead to answers.


For me, a democracy is when the population proposes laws, for example, a petition, which are adopted or vetoed by the population. Or it's not a democracy, nor even a parody. Europe's true vocation is to make democracy impossible and install a government of experts. I'm against it for the reasons I cited. Democracy is the future, Europe is a regression. Elected representatives means no more democracy.


There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.


The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quoting a Russian proverb.


"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." --Robert A. Heinlein


THEN all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. And moreover in time past, even when Saul was king, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over my people Israel.


You got enlightenment. You can use it to change the world.


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Words of Others II

I never want the world to know everything about me. I mean, that’s why I wear big, baggy clothes. Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath. Nobody can be like, ‘Oh, she’s slim-thick, she’s not slim-thick, she’s got a flat a**, she’s got a fat a**. No one can say any of that because they don’t know. - Billie Eilish in 2018 or 19


... throttling the pace of the Blood Orange project to give fans room to breathe, to crafting whole albums the public never gets to hear, to distributing them to friends on cassettes and quietly moving on. - About Dev Hynes


... Thus it should come as no surpise that Trobrianders, like people in other parts of the world, give meanings to things that make them worth more than their cost in labor and the material of which they are made. Long yams, bundles of dried banana leaves, and strings of polished red shell discs all occupy a deep and meaningful place in Trobriand life. These are the things that cross boundaries between people, that connect one villager socially and polically with another. Malinowski wondered why men give so much attention to their yam displays. Yams, we now know, are the objects that create relatedness as they cross clan boundaries, establishing long-term relationships between individuals that lead to other advantages, such as land rights, protection, assistance, and other kinds of wealth. Only from this perspective can we understand the political implications of a chief's yam house standing empty or yams becoming weapons as men measure them against each other in a fight for dominance.


We didn't love freedom enough. - Solzhenitsyn


Is there anything that you regret up to this point?

-Regrets? Of course, I have. Had I known this issue would drag out for so long, I wouldn't have come forward. If no one knew, then I could've just lived quietly. At the age of 14, when I should've been studything, I was taken away. Not being able to study is my deepest regret. If I ever got money from the Japanese government, with that money, I was going to pay for the education of the students who can't afford to do so, so they can study. That was my plan. But I'm 92 now. There is no resolution in sight.

-So if Japan admits to wrongdoing, do you have the heart to forgive?

-I do. They say 'Hate the sin, not the sinner.' This isn't something Abe did. It's what the former emperor did. ... You might be hearing this for the first time, but for me, it's so painful to talk about it. At this age, when I should be at peace the Japanese government keeps dragging out this issue. So, whenever I have to talk abou this over and over, I'm heartbroken beyond belief. - Former comfort woman Kim Bok-Dong


Las mezquitas son lugares de erudiciòn y para impartir justicia, por tanto se desarrolla en ellas tanto la vida privada como pùblica.


The Rus have no cultivated fields and they live by pillaging the land of the Saqaliba. When a son is born, they father throws a naked sword before him and says: 'I leave you no inheritance. All you possess is what you can gain with this sword.'


In the reign of this Ptolemy the Jewish books were translated into the Greek language by 72 teachers in 72 days. For this Ptolemy wished to understand the force of the books in the Greek language, since they had been written in Hebrew.


On the Acropolis of the mountain near Antioch, he built a public bath for the citizens, to which the water was conducted through the Laodicean water conduits from the previously mentioned rivers. He also built on that hill a theater, and restored the Pantheon in Antioch, which was about to fall, erecting also the altar.


First of all im going to show you an all rounder. this is bramble. she is a welsh mountain pony. she is strong enough to carry me from place to place, happily. shes a very solid creature. lovely to ride. shes not particularly tall, so shes nice and easy to get on an off. and does the job incredibly well. shes not particularly high status. shes not a fancy color. she doesn't have sort of stylish breeding or anything like that. she didn't come from an exotic place. in fact she comes from the welsh mountains. so shes a native breed of British horse. but she does the job incredibly well. she probably wouldn't have been too expensive to buy back in medieval times. and she doesn't eat too much so shes not too expensive to look after. and she isn't particularly high maintenance when it comes to getting sick or doing the wrong thing or injuring herself. so shes a very solid choice for somebody of middle status to get around. so there's your typical roundsy. the typical practical everyday horse for riding.


In survival you're always doing something, never relax.


He is very good at narratives. At judging audiences. He experiments. The way you launch a narrative. You never know whether it will go well. He listens to the audience. He creates a whole story. The story of him at his rally, which is spread by word of mouth, it's a visceral thing. Most of these people had never gone to a presidential speech before. And if they did it would have been boring, he would have been talking about statistics on the national deficit or something. Trump is not boring. Really not boring. And it started a word of mouth thing which is huge.


Unlike the Mesolithic hunters, who hugged the coastline and river valleys, the first farmers began to break into the interior of Britain, and what they found was a wild and wooded place. birch and oak forests, home to red deer and elk, in the undergrowth bears and wild pig. this wild region was about to be transformed forever by new technologists, shaping and adapting the land to work for them. they weren't simply alongside nature, but ruling over it.

Its thought neolithic culture swept across Britain in only a few generations.

Cereals and domestic animals, and pottery, a completely different diet. but less healthy than hunters with their fresh fish and red deer, according to scientific evidence. a day came when there were too many people to return to hunting. and land ownership. long lives to loose teeth.


Its not the human remains themselves that are the most interesting. Its what was buried with them.


It turned the conversation once again to the FUTURE of Tesla, and away from what was happening in the country today and its challenges.

He sold 360k EVs in the year. and while he had had a hard time delivering on promises in the past, this one he delivered on, and investors were like if he can deliver on this promise, what other promises could he deliver on in the future?


International diplomacy depends not only on the balance of hard power but also on perceptions of legitimacy which depends crucially on soft power, and it becomes more important than ever in an information age.


The social cohesion that results from multiracial meritocracy is also hard power. it is the foundation on which all else we have achieved has been built, not the least of which is economic success - Singapore.


Would anyone really ascribe soft power to a country whose interests clash with ones own? strong deterrence makes it easier for other countries to regard their interests as being aligned with ours, or at least to regard differences of interests as tolerable.

Countries whose values are aligned attract each other. that is trite but true because values are just another kind of interest, or another way of describing or concealing interests.

Throughout history, power on its own has never been enough.


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If the king violates a free man's dwelling, all will seek out the king to kill him.

From the ancient laws of Norway

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First, do no harm.

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La Torre

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"Little children were torn from the arms of their mothers, clasped by their tiny feet, and their heads dashed against the rocks; or were held between two soldiers and their quivering limbs torn up by main force. Their mangled bodies were then thrown on the highways or fields, to be devoured by beasts. The sick and the aged were burned alive in their dwellings. Some had their hands and arms and legs lopped off, and fire applied to the severed parts to staunch the bleeding and prolong their suffering. Some were flayed alive, some were roasted alive, some disemboweled; or tied to trees in their own orchards, and their hearts cut out. Some were horribly mutilated, and of others the brains were boiled and eaten by these cannibals. Some were fastened down into the furrows of their own fields, and ploughed into the soil as men plough manure into it. Others were buried alive. Fathers were marched to death with the heads of their sons suspended round their necks. Parents were compelled to look on while their children were first outraged [raped], then massacred, before being themselves permitted to die." - History of the Waldenses, by J. A. Wylie, written in the 1880s.

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