Meta-entry: this fortune was randomly chosen from my collection of fortunes, available at http://attila.lendvai.name/fortunes/.
%
% TODO pick some great quotes from The Gulag Archipelago
% http://www.warbirdforum.com/gulag3.htm
% http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/08/the_best_of_sol.html
% https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago
% https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn
%
% "video quotes": https://www.youtube.com/user/TheOmegaPointProject/videos
%
% TODO Dread Pirate Roberts, Ross Ulbricht
% http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/29/collected-quotations-of-the-dread-pirate-roberts-founder-of-the-drug-site-silk-road-and-radical-libertarian/
%
% TODO read and capture stuff from:
%“Parental conditioning is the greatest slavery in the world.
%The child is helpless: he depends on the parents. He cannot rebel, he cannot escape, he cannot protect himself. He is absolutely vulnerable; hence he can be easily exploited.
%Every child is being enveloped: by the parents, by the society, by the teachers, by the priests, by all the vested interests. Enveloped in many layers of conditioning. He is given a certain religious ideology; it is not his choice.
%Society is your parents' writ large. Your parents were nothing but agents of this society.
%It is all a conspiracy: The parents, the teachers, the policeman, the magistrate, the president — they are all together.
%It is all a conspiracy: They are all holding the future of all children.
%– Osho, the book of children, chapter 3”
%
% Planck https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck
%
% #leader -> search for #master
%
%
%
% #unsourced
%
%
%“Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”
%	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
%
%
% #freedom #liberty
%
%
%
Imagine, if you will, a world of consensual voluntary interactions — a world where, as long as you do not violate the consent of others, you are free to be who you are and to do your own thing — without being dominated or threatened by meddlers who presume to know what choices are best for you.
% https://www.facebook.com/cashify/posts/649493981783739
%
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
	— Albert Camus (1913–1960)
%
“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”
	— Charles Bukowski (1920–1994)
%
Freedom cannot be given… it can only be taken away.
%
% #intellectual freedom
The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.
%
No man is free who is not master of himself.
%
If the source of fear is the unknown, and fear is the only way to be controlled, then knowledge is the only way to be free.
%
“It is not recognized in the full amplitude of the word that all freedom is essentially self-liberation — that I can have only so much freedom as I procure for myself by my ownness.”
	— Max Stirner
%
“Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'The Soul of an Individualist' in 'The Fountainhead' (1943)
%
No man survives when freedom fails
The best men rot in filthy jails
And those who cry 'appease, appease'
Are hanged by those they tried to please.
	— Hiram Mann
%
“Life is dear, love is dearer. Both can be given up for freedom.”
	— Sándor Petőfi (1823–1849), 'Szabadság, szerelem!'
% found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-08-14/In_the_news
% http://magyar-irodalom.elte.hu/sulinet/igyjo/setup/portrek/petofi/szabadsa.htm
% translation: https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060617165336AAtnc6v
% Freedom and love,
% These two things I need.
% For love I sacrifice my life,
% For freedom I sacrifice my love.
%
“To die for one's ideas, sure, but very slowly, very very slowly…”
	— George Brassens (1921–1981)
%
% to see the farm is to leave it. #slavery
“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”
	— Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563), 'Discourse on Voluntary Servitude' (1549)
% https://mises.org/library/politics-obedience-discourse-voluntary-servitude
% longer context:
%   Thus, after concluding that all tyranny rests on popular consent, La Boétie eloquently concludes that “obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement.” Tyrants need not be expropriated by force; they need only be deprived of the public’s continuing supply of funds and resources. The more one yields to tyrants, La Boétie points out, the stronger and mightier they become. But if the tyrants “are simply not obeyed,” they become “undone and as nothing.” La Boétie then exhorts the “poor, wretched, and stupid peoples” to cast off their chains by refusing to supply the tyrant any further with the instruments of their own oppression. The tyrant, indeed, has nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had not cooperation from you?
%   La Boétie concludes his exhortation by assuring the masses that to overthrow the tyrant they need not act, nor shed their blood. They can do so “merely by willing to be free.” In short,
%   “Resolve to serve no more...
%
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. […] It is true that in the beginning men submit under constraint and by force; but those who come after them obey without regret and perform willingly what their predecessors had done because they had to. This is why men born under the yoke and then nourished and reared in slavery are content, without further effort, to live in their native circumstance, unaware of any other state or right, and considering as quite natural the condition into which they are born […] the powerful influence of custom is in no respect more compelling than in this, namely, habituation to subjection.”
	— Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563), 'Discourse on Voluntary Servitude' (1549)
%
% see also: Frankl
Freedom is a state of mind.
% https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/how-to-be-sociably-selfish-and-live-free-8c244104d5f
%
“A disciplined mind is never a free mind, nor can a mind that has suppressed desire ever be free. It is only through understanding the whole process of desire that the mind can be free.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
% https://www.jkrishnamurti.org/content/introduction
%
“Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now but for your being more interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgement and appreciation.”
	— Nisargadatta (1897–1981)
%
“I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.”
	— Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–1944)
%
Freedom is free of the need to be free.
%
You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself, that understands itself.
% https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154559750572180&set=a.28899217179.36109.513127179&type=3
%
“Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.”
	— George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1877–1949)
%
“All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“We are facing a tremendous crisis which the politicians can never solve. Nor can the scientists understand or solve the crisis, nor yet the business world, the world of money. The turning point is not in politics, in religion, in the scientific world; it is in our consciousness.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“This concern with the basic condition of freedom — the absence of physical constraint — is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free — to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
% continues: The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.
%
“Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost.”
	— Josiah Warren (1798–1874)
%
“Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty”
	— Emma Goldman (1869–1940), her grave inscription
%
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
%	— Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) (unsourced, and he didn't live up to this quote either, so let his name and his hypocrisy fade away…)
%
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
	— Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), 1759
%
% #debt
“Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty.”
	— Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), 'The Way to Wealth' (1758)
%
% government #bond #lending to government
“And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887)
%
“For those looking for security, be forewarned that there’s nothing more insecure than a political promise.”
	— Harry Browne (1933–2006)
%
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
	— Assata Shakur (1947–)
%
“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too.”
	— Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
%
“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778)
%
%“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
%	— Denis Diderot (1713–1784), somewhat paraphrased
% not representative. he was just warning against a popular sentiment without approving its conclusion (even if having some sympathy for it)…
% http://www.democraticunderground.com/1199122
%
“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
	— Samuel Adams (1722–1803), 'Speech in Philadelphia' (1776)
%
%“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”
%	— Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), unsourced
The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.
%
“Most people think they need a ruler. Perhaps we should give them a fake one that doesn't actually do anything, and then they won't think about it. It is sort of like giving an infant a pacifier.”
	— Perry Metzger
%
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), 'Man and Superman'
%
“Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions […] Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'The Constitution of Liberty' (1960)
%
“Freedom is essentially a condition of inequality, not equality. It recognizes as a fact of nature the structural differences inherent in man – in temperament, character, and capacity – and it respects those differences. We are not alike and no law can make us so.”
	— Frank Chodorov (1887–1966)
%
% #freedom of speech #censorship
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778), 'Essay on Tolerance' (paraphrased)
% https://web.archive.org/web/20150110085007/http://www.classroomtools.com/voltaire.htm
%
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
% NOT Mark Twain... https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Censorship
%
“I've said before, and it's still true: the day I DON'T dare to say what I think in public, is the day those in power better start worrying about me getting nasty.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
	— Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
%
% #press
% full: The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.
“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. […] If everybody always lies to you […] nobody believes anything any longer. […] with such a people you can then do what you please.”
	— Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
%
“A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'The Foundations of Liberal Policy'
%
Toleration is not about believing that stupid people are intelligent, it's about letting stupid people be victims of their own stupidity rather than being victims of yours.
%
%Toleration is not about respecting other people's ideas. We have every right to fight ideas we think are stupid. Toleration is about respecting other people's persons. We have every duty to respect even persons we think are stupid.
%
% #stability #order
“There is no freedom without noise — and no stability without volatility.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
“For followers of most ideologies (openly religious or not), toleration is a concession of defeat. For libertarians, it is victory itself.”
	— François-René Rideau
% #fare https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10152707400990469
%
% #free market
“[Competition] not only shows how things can be done more effectively, but also confronts those who depend for their incomes on the market with the alternative of imitating the more successful or losing some or all of their income. Competition produces in this way a kind of impersonal compulsion which makes it necessary for numerous individuals to adjust their way of life in a manner that no deliberate instructions or commands could bring about.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'Competition as a Discovery Procedure' (1968)
% published in New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
%
If freedom makes you think of antisocial behavior, harming other people and not helping anyone — maybe the problem is with you, not freedom.
%
%
%
%
% #anarchy
%
%
%
Anarchy is no guarantee that some people won't kill, injure, kidnap, defraud or steal from others. Government is a guarantee that some will.
% probably by Robert Higgs, https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10221600205937037?comment_id=10221601310564652
% "It sounds like something I might have said, but I'm not certain I said it. Auberon Herbert, among others. made similar statements."
%
% full: “Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a Great Leap Forward that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.”
“Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”
	— Robert Higgs (1944–)
%
“I do not think that it is possible to give any meaningful definition of anarchy by which it could exist but currently does not. Anarchists are not those who wish that there be anarchy, but those who reason along anarchist lines about what there currently is, what there was and what could there possibly be.”
	— Zsolt Felföldi
% https://www.facebook.com/groups/magyarancap/permalink/590874917704676/?comment_id=592040820921419&offset=0&total_comments=62
% https://www.facebook.com/TheArtOfNotBeingGoverned/posts/391800224302215
%
“The state is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, but is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.”
	— Gustav Landauer (1870–1919)
%
“Society is always in anarchy. A government only abolishes anarchy among what are called "subjects" or "citizens," but among those who rule, anarchy prevails.”
	— Alfred G. Cuzán (1948–), 'Do we ever really get out of anarchy?' (2009)
%
“Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.”
	— Will Rogers (1879–1935)
%
“Government is nothing but men acting in concert. The Morality and value of Government, like any other association of men, will be no greater and no less then the Morality and value of the men comprising it. Since Government is nothing but men, its inherent 'authority' to act is in no way greater or different than the 'authority' to act of individuals in isolation. Government has no 'magic powers' or 'authority' not possessed by private individuals. Let he who asserts that Government may do that which the individual may not assume the onus of proof and demonstrate his contention.”
	— Chris Lyspooner (a fb pseudonym)
%
“Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity to make arrangements.”
	— Karl Hess (1923–1994)
%
“A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame… as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world… aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' (1966)
%
% #fellow men
“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) […] the most improper job of any man […] is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
	— J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), Letter to his son Christopher Tolkien (1943), http://youtu.be/jfxdlWje5nk https://youtu.be/ndEWof-8xTY
% "There is only one Lord of the Ring, and he does not share his power."
% from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndEWof-8xTY
% "The purpose of the ring is to dominate other minds, to enslave them [...] to take their freedom to make their own choices, the very freedom that makes heorism and moral victory possible. The ring of course is an extension of Sauron whose only cause is ultimate power and domination. [...] The ring recognizes no other authority than its creator which also explains why trying to use the ring for military achievements is not an option. For this would still lead to a defeat for those under the ring's influence will eventually succumb to its corruption and end up a slave under Sauron's dominion. Sauron's power is singular, it does not desire friends of allies. It does not work towards a greater good, it's an end in itself that consumes everything it touches. [...] As we see on more than one occasion, this manipulation of the mind happens without the knowledge of those who are being manipulated. The ring decieve through illusions of grandeur, often by giving its victims the false belief that it can be used for good. For this it needs darkness, it needs to operate in secrecy, as is symblolized by the power of invisibility the ring gifts to its carrier.
%
% #free will
“A human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil.
If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange — meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State.”
	— Anthony Burgess, 25 years after the original publication of A Clockwork Orange
%
“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
	— Gandalf in 'Lord of the Rings' by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), http://youtu.be/jfxdlWje5nk
%
“I believe that all other political states are in fact variations or outgrowths of a basic state of anarchy; after all, when you mention the idea of anarchy to most people they will tell you what a bad idea it is because the biggest gang would just take over. Which is pretty much how I see contemporary society. We live in a badly developed anarchist situation in which the biggest gang has taken over and have declared that it is not an anarchist situation – that it is a capitalist or a communist situation. But I tend to think that anarchy is the most natural form of politics for a human being to actually practice.”
	— Alan Moore (1953–), 'Mythmakers and Lawbreakers' (2009)
%
“To the average American or Englishman the very name of anarchy causes a shudder, because it invariably conjures up a picture of a land terrorized by low-browed assassins with matted beards, carrying bombs in one hand and mugs of beer in the other. But as a matter of fact, there is no reason whatever to believe that, if all laws were abolished tomorrow, such swine would survive the day. They are incompetents under our present paternalism and they would be incompetents under Dionysian anarchy. The only difference between the two states is that the former, by its laws, protects men of this sort, whereas the latter would work their speedy annihilation.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956), 'The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche' (1907)
%
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The Law' (1850)
%
“Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.”
	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
“Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”
	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
“Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes I am an Anarchist.”
	— William Graham Sumner (1840–1910)
%
“Anarchy presumes decentralized and cooperative systems that serve the mutual interests of the individuals comprising them, without the systems ever becoming their own reasons for being. […] Political thinking, by contrast, presumes the supremacy of the systems (i.e., the state) and reduces individuals to the status of resources for the accomplishment of their ends.”
	— Butler Shaffer, 'What Is Anarchy?' (2004, http://archive.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer60.html)
%
“As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free.”
	— Charles Chaplin (1889–1977), 'A King in New York' (1957)
%
“We are the beginning of humanity. The group of people who dares to say, ‘we shouldn't initiate violence against each-other’. How painfully obvious is that? But it needs to be said because most people have been taught that there’s a giant exception called government. Future generations are gonna be really glad we talked about this.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.”
	— Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912)
%
% #peace
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes without resort to arms.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955), in a speech to the New History Society, 14 December 1930.
%
% #civil war
“Anarchy is order, government is civil war.”
	— Anselme Bellegarrigue (ca. 1820–1890)
%
Who says individual liberty, says sovereignty of each;
Who says sovereignty of each, says equality;
Who says equality, says solidarity or fraternity;
Who says fraternity, says social order.
	— Anselme Bellegarrigue, (part of the) 'Anarchist Manifesto' (1850)
% https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anselme_Bellegarrigue
%
“Let India, the word, disappear; it doesn’t matter. But let the people live – and let them live the way they want to live. Don’t force anything on anybody.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“The best government is no government. The very idea of somebody governing somebody else is inhuman. Government is a game, the ugliest and the dirtiest game in the world. But there are people in the lowest state of consciousness who enjoy it: these are the politicians.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
% The only joy of a politician is to govern, to be in power, to enslave people. The greatest desire of all those who have reached to the peaks of consciousness has been the dream that one day we can get rid of all governments.
% http://www.oshoworld.com/onlinemag/jan2002/htm/editorial.asp
%
“The final dream should remain no government. In fact there is no need for any government – just a little understanding in people. What is the need for governments? […] So I don’t think that with governments disappearing there will be chaos, no. With governments disappearing there will arise intelligence, understanding. […] When there is no government and you feel for the first time that you are responsible, whatever you do, there is nobody you can throw your responsibility upon – that triggers your intelligence. […] Governments have been only a nuisance, nothing else. […] All chaos is because of government.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“If each city becomes a country that will spoil the whole game of the politicians. […] there will be millions of presidents and prime ministers – they will lose all meaning. Hence the continuous effort to keep countries big: the bigger the country, the bigger the politician; the smaller the country, the smaller the politician. I want the country to be so small that the politician is of no significance at all.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #capitalism #Laissez-faire
“Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism, is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire capitalism encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value. It recognizes charity and communal enterprises as voluntary versions of this same ethic. Such a system would be straight barter, except for the widely felt need for a division of labor in which men, voluntarily, accept value tokens such as cash and credit. Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so.”
	— Karl Hess (1923–1994)
%
%
%
%
% #resistance #revolution
%
%
%
%
“When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”
	— John Lennon (1940–1980), murdered by a stranger. https://youtu.be/_oJ9w0x_dzo
%
“The revolution will be won, not, as the authoritarians would claim, when the last political boss is hanged with the bowels of the last state propagandist, but, as the libertarians know, when the ever-repeated attempts to lure people into subservience are systematically greeted with laughter and drowned in ridicule by free men who are well-armed both physically and intellectually.”
	– François-René Rideau (1973–), adapted from http://fare.livejournal.com/19466.html
%
“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.”
	— Jim Morrison (1943–1971)
%
% #master #public #sentiment #public sentiment #public opinion #reform
“Socrates understood (what modern political reformers and revolutionaries seem unable to understand) that a reform cannot be achieved by a well-intentioned leader who recruits his followers from the very people whose moral confusion is the cause of the disorder.”
	— Eric Voegelin (1901–1985), 'Plato and Aristotle'
%
% #sentiment #love #domination #power #opposites
“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“A political situation is the manifestation of a parallel psychological problem in millions of individuals. This problem is largely unconscious (which makes it a particularly dangerous one!)”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), Letters, vol.1 pg. 535
%
% the governing dynamics of human freedom are predicated upon the aggregate morality of a society (Mark Passio, https://www.facebook.com/whatonearth93/videos/1206752939482982/)
%
% TODO should the following few go under or near propaganda?
% public #sentiment #morale 
“The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), 'Freedom of the Park' (1945)
%
“If public opinion is ultimately responsible for the structure of government, it is also the agency that determines whether there is freedom or bondage. There is virtually only one factor that has the power to make people unfree—tyrannical public opinion. The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Theory And History' (1957)
%
“No government rules for long through brute force alone, no matter how undemocratic. Enough of its subjects must accept its power as necessary or desirable for its rule to be widely enforced and observed.”
	— Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, 'The Will to Be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense'
%full context: “No government rules for long through brute force alone, no matter how undemocratic. Enough of its subjects must accept its power as necessary or desirable for its rule to be widely enforced and observed. But the very social consensus that legitimizes the State also binds it. Ideology therefore becomes the wild card that accounts for public-spirited mass movements overcoming the free-rider problem and affecting significant changes in government policy.… Successful ideas therefore can induce alterations in the size, scope, and intrusiveness of government.”
% source: http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=185 http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/tgif-does-freedom-require-empire/
%
“Ideas ultimately determine in which direction [people] wield their weapons or whether they wield them at all.”
	— Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, 'The Will to Be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense'
%
“I think about it every day: what is the MOST effective, efficient, way to turn things around and every day I re-conclude that it is through informing and persuading others most of all; no "technique" or strategy can work, now and in the long run, if people do not understand the *WHY* behind it.”
	— Tom Gorman
%
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”
	— Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–), 'The Dispossessed'
%
“Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.”
	— Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
%
%
%
%
% #fix the world, #change the world, #enlighten
%
%
%
“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”
	— Paulo Coelho (1947–)
%
“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
Your children will be predisposed to becoming who you are. Get busy becoming who you want them to be!
%
“To a disciple who was forever complaining about others, the Master said, ‘If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.’”
	— Anthony de Mello (1931–1987)
%
% #peace
“If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
% #peace
“We are entitled to peace to the degree that we grant it to others. Politics insures that we grant little, and have little.”
	— Ken Eddings, https://www.facebook.com/ken.eddings.5/posts/1034903696653372
%
“We owe no morality to those who hold us under a gun.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged'
%
“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.”
	— Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015), 'There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem'
%
“A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“The demands that good people make are upon themselves; Those that bad people make are upon others.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“We are facing a tremendous crisis; a crisis which the politicians can never solve […], nor can the scientists understand or solve the crisis; nor yet the business world, the world of money. The turning point, the perceptive decision, the challenge, is not in politics, in religion, in the scientific world, it is in our consciousness. One has to understand the consciousness of mankind, which has brought us to this point.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'The Network of Thought' (1982)
% https://kfoundation.org/krishnamurti-the-network-of-thought-we-are-facing-a-tremendous-crisis/
%
“Humanity can be saved only if there are enough conscious people in the world, people who are not Christians, not Hindus, not Americans, not Russians, who are simply conscious, and can create a climate of consciousness around the earth.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #truth
“Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth. The very desire to find the truth disappears. But in the beginning it is bitter if all your belief systems are taken away from you. The fear and anxiety which you have been suppressing for millennia, which is there, very alive, will surface immediately. No God can destroy it, only the search for truth and the experience of truth — not a belief — is capable of healing all your wounds, of making you a whole being. And the whole person is the holy person to me.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'GOD IS DEAD - Now Zen is the only living truth' (1989), http://youtu.be/PBEIeRSLb8k
%
%“Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth. The very desire to find the truth disappears. But in the beginning it is bitter if all your belief systems are taken away from you. […] You are meant to be a Buddha, not to be a Buddhist. What is a Buddhist compared to being a Buddha? – just a believer, not a seeker, not an enquirer. […] The man of intelligence does not believe in anything and does not disbelieve in anything. The man of intelligence is open to recognizing whatsoever is the case. […] A clear mind is needed, an intelligence is needed that does not cling to any belief. Then you are like a mirror: you reflect that which is; you don’t distort it. […] when you are no more, only then for the first time will you be.”
%	— Osho (1931–1990)
% TODO this^ is a collection of quotes from various sources.
% buddha/buddhist: The Guest, Ch 3, Q 4 http://www.oshonews.com/2013/01/belief-gives-you-security/
%
% call it fate
“Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we keep trying to slay them in the outer world. And we find that we cannot. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there that we must do our work.”
	— Marianne Williamson (1952–), 'Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness And Making Miracles' (2004)
%
% #fix yourself
“The only hope for humankind is in the transformation of the individual.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
% related: https://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/letters/0007/006647_e.htm
% "the only way out is through the descent of a consciousness which is not the puppet of these forces but is greater than they are and can compel them either to change or disappear."
%
“If things go wrong in the world, this is because something is wrong with the individual, because something is wrong with me. Therefore, if I am sensible, I shall put myself right first”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man'
%
“Let him who would move the world, first move himself.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amkJwvpf1S4
% https://www.facebook.com/TragedyandHopeChannel/videos/764296353729537/
%
%“Healing yourself takes a thousand times more courage than trying to fix the world ever did.”
%	— Teal Scott (http://thespiritualcatalyst.com/quotes)
%
% #new #change
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
	— Dan Millman (1946–), 'Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives'
% http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/05/28/socrates-energy/
%
“Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality—and that my sanction was its only power.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Galt’s Speech'
%
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
%
% #responsibility
“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis' (1922)
% http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msS13.html
%
“If we wait for history to present us with freedom and other precious gifts, we risk waiting in vain. History is us -- and there is no alternative but to shoulder the burden of what we so passionately desire and heart it out of the depths.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), 'From Under the Rubble' (1975)
%
%
%
%
%
% #awakening #enlightenment #spiritual awakening
%
%
%
%
% #truth
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
	— Adyashanti (1962–)
%
%full: “The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial, and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I’m a parent. And I think anybody who has children, you come to this realization, you know—what’ll it be? Alienated, cynical intellectual? Or slack-jawed, half-wit consumer of the horseshit being handed down from on high? There is not much choice in there, you see. And we all want our children to be well adjusted; unfortunately, there’s nothing to be well adjusted to!”
“The cost of sanity in this society, is a certain level of alienation.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), 'The world and its double' (11 September 1993)
% https://bestquotes.space/author%7Cterence+mckenna%7C2341/quote-120521
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jp2vbg1nDA
% full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaB5gg9t1xQ
% full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiOQAYfQfAM
% gone full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPX7QcIUoVg&t=28m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EJ7EEYJ4Ig
% gone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufHyOQPWkIA
% Your Life is Your life: Go all the way - Charles Bukowski https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lK4LrD8Ii4&t=1m01s
%
“Another common thing in spiritual circles, when you have some deep realization - when there’s true awakening, you’re sort of waking up not only from your personal stuff, your personal illusion, but if there’s real awakening you’ve penetrated through collective illusions, the collective consciousness of humanity. And when you get beyond the collective consciousness of humanity, there’s not a lot of company out there. (laughs) There’s really not a lot of company out there. All the company you know is back in that illusion, one’s personal illusions, and then the collective illusions we agree upon as human beings. The way we see the world and ourselves, and others. And there’s a tremendous sense of aloneness, which isn’t the same as loneliness. Loneliness is only something a separate person can come up with. But aloneness is something different. Aloneness can be, initially, a bit disturbing as well. It’s why a lot of people when they have some glimpse, they run back to the dream state, cause there’s company there. It’s familiar, people understand you there, you know? […] It’s sort of like you’re an alcoholic and you stop drinking, but you live the rest of your life in a bar. You’re in the bar, but you don’t really fit in because you’re not drinking anymore. (laughs) Awakening is a bit like that, like sobering up but spending the rest of your life in a bar where everybody’s drinking, and rather drunk, loaded, and acting weird because of it and wondering why you’re not partaking. And thinking you’re a bit strange, you know?”
	— Adyashanti (1962–)
%
% #mental health
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“The strength of a person's spirit would then be measured by how much 'truth' he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Beyond Good and Evil' (1886)
%
“How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? […] that became for me more and more the real measure of value.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
% #truthseekers #awakening
“Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance.”
	— Henri Bergson (1859–1941)
% TODO find a source... https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Bergson
%
“In every declining civilization there is a small "remnant" of people who adhere to the right against the wrong; who recognize the difference between good and evil and who will take an active stand for the former and against the latter; who can still think and discern and who will courageously take a stand against the political, social, moral, and spiritual rot or decay of their day.”
	— Donald S. McAlvaney
%
% #awakening #awareness #alienation #transformation
“Many people who are going through the early stages of the awakening process are no longer certain what their outer purpose is. What drives the world no longer drives them. Seeing the madness of our civilization so clearly, they may feel somewhat alienated from the culture around them. Some feel that they inhabit a no-man's land between two worlds. They are no longer run by the ego, yet the arising awareness has not yet become fully integrated into their lives. Inner and outer purpose have not merged.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
“The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity. So it is that we must weather that dark time, the period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness is not yet ours.”
	— Ram Dass
%
“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
“When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your unconscious identification with the stream of thinking. When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice — the thinker — but the one who is aware of it. Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'Stillness Speaks'
%
“The more real you get the more unreal the world gets.”
	— John Lennon (1940–1980), murdered by a stranger.
%
“Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.”
	— Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
%
% #psychedelics #doors of perception #prism #perception
“There is no difference in principle between sharpening perception with an external instrument, such as a microscope, and sharpening it with an internal instrument, such as one of these… drugs. If they are an affront to the dignity of the mind, the microscope is an affront to the dignity of the eye and the telephone to the dignity of the ear. Strictly speaking, these drugs do not impart wisdom at all, any more than the microscope alone gives knowledge. They provide the raw materials of wisdom, and are useful to the extent that the individual can integrate what they reveal into the whole pattern of his behavior and the whole system of his knowledge.”
	— Alan Watts (1915–1973), 'The Joyous Cosmology'
%
“All experience is a drug experience. Whether it’s mediated by our own [endogenous] drugs, or whether it’s mediated by substances that we ingest that are found in plants, cognition, consciousness, the working of the brain, it’s all a chemically mediated process. Life itself is a drug experience.”
	— Dennis Mckenna (1950–)
%
“Anything that can contribute to such a fundamental change in our perception of reality must therefore command our earnest attention.”
	— Albert Hofmann (1906–2008), 'LSD: My Problem Child'
%
% Perception is awareness shaped by belief. Beliefs "control" perception. Rewrite beliefs and you rewrite perception. (Bruce Lipton)
%
“To fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic.”
	— Dr Humphry Osmond
%
“If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family!”
	— Ram Dass (1931–)
%
You cannot wake up someone who is only pretending to be asleep.
	— Indian proverb
%
“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778)
%
“Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.”
	— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–)
%
%
%
%
% #violence #force #power
%
%
%
“Of the exercise of a right, your power may deprive me; of the right itself, never.”
	— Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912)
%
“Don't ever imagine that someone who would FORCE their opinion on you, is doing it for YOUR own good.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arN4TA1Fm3A
%
“The system is set up to be a setup such that a person oppressed by the system of evil must adopt the values of evil if they want to rise in positions of power and rank.”
	— Paul Levy
%
“Where there are rulers, there are no rules, only interest-serving opinions enforced by violence. To want rulers is to beg for chaos.”
	— Brandon Roark
% "Everyone has an interest in a society of rules: No one wants to be at risk of being killed by anyone, with impunity. But some people want their cake and to eat it too, that is, a society where there are rules (nobody has the right to kill them) and they are above the rules (they and they alone have a license to kill). The problem is that this position is untenable: to claim that rules may only apply sometimes to some, according to random criteria, is not to have conditional rules, but is to give up on rules altogether." from: http://laissez-faire.ch/en/articles/the-impossibility-of-a-non-libertarian-philosophy-of-law/
% (more details: http://youtu.be/lat7fFOMXFI)
% https://www.facebook.com/brandon.shavers/posts/10200684195488989
% Larken Rose (1968–) in a longer form: https://www.facebook.com/larken.rose.7/posts/1516726231940513
% hungarian: https://www.facebook.com/szabfilo/posts/330549207128257
%
“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.”
	— David D. Friedman (1945–), 'The Machinery of Freedom' (1973)
%
“The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. "To establish Anarchy." "Anarchy will be instituted." But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require protection from governmental power, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'On Anarchy' (Pamphlets: Translated from the Russian, 1896), a longer reasoning: http://youtu.be/cvo-yEymNuQ?t=16m12s
%
“Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.”
	— Lucy E. Parsons (1853–1942)
%
“The real revolution needs no leaders, banners, or platforms. Each awakened man’s consciousness is his own guide. Those looking for a place to sign up are simply looking for more enslavement. The controllers are well aware of the danger to their pyramid and will surely toss out some interesting schemes to hold on to power. The enemy of awareness is distraction, but the antidote is simple: close out, turn off, unplug and ignore.”
	— Robert Bonomo
%
“It is vain to fight totalitarianism by adopting totalitarian methods. Freedom can only be won by men unconditionally committed to the principles of freedom. The first requisite for a better social order is the return to unrestricted freedom of thought and speech.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Omnipotent Government' (1944)
%
% full: It has been necessary to dwell upon these truisms because the mythologies and metaphysics of etatism have succeeded in wrapping them in mystery. The state is a human institution, not a superhuman being. He who says “state” means coercion and compulsion. He who says: There should be a law concerning this matter, means: The armed men of the government should force people to do what they do not want to do, or not to do what they like. He who says: This law should be better enforced, means: The police should force people to obey this law. He who says: The state is God, deifies arms and prisons. The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
“The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Omnipotent Government' (1944)
% https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/mises-on-the-worship-of-the-state-or-statolatry-1944
%
“Revolutions mean the centralization of power. Until conservatives figure this out, they are not going to understand what is going on, and what has been going on for the past 500 years. Revolutions centralize power. In order to fight centralized power militarily, you must centralize power, and this only leads to a shift of loyalty to a new group of centralists. We are slow learners.”
	— Gary North
%
% #powerful people #fellow men
“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. 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.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), '1984'
%
“Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone, who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.”
	— Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56–117)
%
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
	— Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
%
“Power, by its very nature, distorts the upward flow of information.”
	— Kevin Carson, 'Magical Thinking and Authority', http://c4ss.org/content/25602
%
“Power resides where men believe it resides; it's a trick, a shadow on the wall, and a very small man [physically, morally, or otherwise] can cast a very large shadow.”
	— Varys to Tyrion Lannister in 'The Game of Thrones', https://youtu.be/FpL6Fwu0wkw
%
“The only people who want to force you to do stuff are people who know their ideas are shit to begin with.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“If you want kids, choose your girlfriend like your future child has the deciding vote.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
% #love
To fight a violent enemy, violence is necessary; but to fight violence itself, violence is vain.
%
%
%
% #science
%
%
%
“In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better. That’s not a good future for the human race. That’s our past.”
	— Michael Crichton (1942–2008), 'Environmentalism as Religion'
%	  (A lecture at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, 2003-09-15)
%
“The ultimate lesson is that science isn’t special – at least not anymore. Maybe back when Einstein talked to Niels Bohr, and there were only a few dozen important workers in every field. But there are now three million researchers in America. It’s no longer a calling, it’s a career. Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other. Its practitioners aren’t saints, they’re human beings, and they do what human beings do – lie, cheat, steal from one another, sue, hide data, fake data, overstate their own importance and denigrate opposing views unfairly.”
	— Michael Crichton (1942–2008)
%
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny…”
	— Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
%
“Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.”
	— Carl Sagan (1934–1996)
%
“Modern science is based upon the principle "give us one free miracle, and we'll explain the rest".”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), http://youtu.be/JKHUaNAxsTg?t=6m40s
%
“Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
“Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988), 'What Do You Care What Other People Think?'
%
“There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.”
	— Daniel C. Dennett, 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea'
%
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
Or in short: “Science advances one funeral at a time.”
	— Max Planck (1858–1947), paraphrased
% https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/25/progress/
% Plank full: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth."
%— Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33, 97
%
% it's filed somewhere else, but it belongs here, too: “The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical — always think for yourself.”
%	— Linus Pauling (1901–1994), 'Scientist and Peacemaker' (2001)
“They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
	— Carl Sagan (1934–1996)
%
%“A society that separates it scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
%“A nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools.”
% misattributed to Thucydides (c. 460–400 BC)
% #self defense #use of force #warrior #philosopher
%
“The nation that will insist on drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards.”
	— Sir William Francis Butler (1838–1910)
%
“The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”
	— P.J. O'Rourke (1947–)
%
%
%
% #economics #economy #gold #money
% http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-15/ludwig-von-mises-top-9-quotes-gold
%
%
%
“There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others.”
	— Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1943)
%
“In the long run, John Maynard Keynes is dead.”
	— John Perich
%
% #profit
“Profit is the signal which tells us what we must do in order to serve people we do not know. By pursuing profit, we are as altruistic as we can possibly be, because we extend our concern to people who are beyond our range of personal conception.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992)
%
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946): famous economist, the first successful alchemist in history. (although rumor has it, his artifacts require large amounts of gunpowder, are rather fragile, and tend to pop unexpectedly)
%
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
	— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' (1936)
%
% #prices
“If prices are information, then subsidies are censorship.”
	— Russ Nelson (1958–)
%
“But if you wish to remain slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them create money.”
	— Joshua Stamp
%
% “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies,"  Jefferson wrote. " If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around(these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
	— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace' (1919)
% full quote:
%Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
%Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
%
An economist is a person who spends half his life telling us what will happen and the other half explaining why it didn't.
%
%
%
%
% #war #military #soldiers #enforcement #tyranny
%
%
%
“All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers […] Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.”
	— Francois Fenelon
%
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people […].”
	— Howard Zinn (1922–2010), 'Terror Over Tripoli' (1993)
%
“War has been the necessary and inevitable consequence of the establishment of a monopoly on security.”
	— Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912), 'The Production of Security' (1849)
%
“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.”
	— John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
%
“What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
%
“The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.”
	— Eugene W. Roddenberry (1921-1991), creator of the Star Trek series
%
%“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
%	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
% TODO find a source
%
“I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, […] instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder.”
	— Harry Patch (1898–2009), the last surviving soldier of the First World War
%
% #racket #domestic tyranny
“A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), 'The Gulag Archipelago' (1973)
%
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
	— Smedley Butler (1881–1940), 'War is a racket' (1935), US Marine major general (highest rank at that time)
%
% #taxation
“In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809), 'Rights of Man'
%
“War is the health of the state”
	— Randolph Bourne (1886–1918), 'The State' (1918)
%
“In accordance to the principles of doublethink, it does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), '1984'
%
“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.”
	— Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)
%
“The pursuit of commerce reconciles nations, calms wars, strengthens peace, and commutes the private good of individuals into the common benefit of all.”
	— Hugh of Saint Victor (1096–1141)
%
“We cannot build peace on blood. We are still so addicted to this lie. We have this fantasy that we honor the dead by adding to their number. What we need to do is remember that these bodies bury us. This ocean of blood that we create through the fantasy that violence brings virtue… drowns us, drowns our children, drowns our future, drowns the world. We have to understand that when we pour these endless young bodies into this pit of death, we follow…”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Armies are necessary, before all things, for the defense of governments from their own oppressed and enslaved subjects.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' (1894)
%
“In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'On Patriotism' (1894)
%
“When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”
	— Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), during Britain's second Afghan war
%
“[…] all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), 'Homage to Catalonia' (1938)
%
“War is a moral contest that is won in the temples before it is ever fought.”
	— Sun Tzu (c. 6th century BC), author of 'The Art of War' (as paraphrased by Jack Kennedy)
%
“[Soldiers are] dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.”
	— Henry Kissinger (1923–)
%
“To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war. […] Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism. […] The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), sliced together from 'Human Action' and 'Nation, State and Economy'
%
“As tax-funded monopolists of ultimate decision making, states can externalize the costs associated with aggressive behavior onto hapless taxpayers. Hence, states are by nature more prone to become aggressors and warmongers than agents or agencies that must themselves bear the costs involved in aggression and war.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
%
“Pick the fight that if you win it will make every other fight easier to win.”
	— Tarren Bragdon
%
%
%
%
% #law #corruption #justice #cronyism
%
%
%
“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The Law' (1850)
%
“How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.”
	— Walter E. Williams (1936–), 'All It Takes is Guts: A Minority View'
%
“The funny thing about people who really and truly believe that it is IMMORAL to "break the law" (which is most people): they have no idea how to be good. No, really. Since NO ONE knows what all the politician scribbles ("laws") say, and NO ONE can keep track of all the stupid regulations and requirements, it means NO ONE who respects the "law" knows how to behave morally. "Oops, I accidentally sinned, by inadvertently disobeying some arbitrary edict issued by some unknown busy-body somewhere! I'm so ashamed!" What an odd way to try to be a good person. If you need to ask politicians and bureaucrats how to live a moral life, something is horribly wrong.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–), https://www.facebook.com/larken.rose.7/posts/1450229895256814
%
“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
%
“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
	— John Philpot Curran (1750–1817)
%
“The more corrupt the state, the more laws.”
	— Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56–117), 'Annals' (117)
% original: Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
%
“Dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies.”
	—  Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994), 'Escolios a un texto implicito: Seleccion'
%
“The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC), 'Tao Te Ching'
%
“Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.”
	— Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755)
%
“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The Law' (1850)
%
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850)
%
“When does plunder stop? When it becomes more burdensome and more dangerous than it is to labor.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The Law' (1850), paraphrased
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10214795157495079
% from The Law: "Now, labor being in itself a pain, and man being naturally inclined to avoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that wherever plunder is less burdensome than labor, it prevails; and neither religion nor morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing. When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes more burdensome and more dangerous than labor."
% "Or, le travail étant en lui-même une peine, et l’homme étant naturellement porté à fuir la peine, il s’ensuit, l’histoire est là pour le prouver, que partout où la spoliation est moins onéreuse que le travail, elle prévaut ; elle prévaut sans que ni religion ni morale puissent, dans ce cas, l’empêcher. Quand donc s’arrête la spoliation ? Quand elle devient plus onéreuse, plus dangereuse que le travail."
% FYI Onéreux(-euse) [en] Onerous, burdensome, expensive [hu] terhes, drága.
%
% #good people and the law
“Good people don’t need laws to tell them to act responsibly, and bad people will find a way around the laws.”
	— Plato (c. 427–347 BC)
%
“You cannot make men good by law”
	— C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)
%
% full: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”
	— C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), 'The Screwtape Letters'
%
“No law [legislation] can give power to private persons; every law transfers power from private persons to government.”
	— Isabel Paterson (1886–1961)
%
“Legislation is the manifestation of Evil in the world. Legislation is the supreme camouflage of the devil, for it institutionalises Evil by giving it the appearance of Good.”
	— Christian Michel, 'Ought We To Obey The Laws Of Our Country?'
% https://web.archive.org/web/20111229153242/http://www.liberalia.com/htm/cm_obey_laws.htm
%
“Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Meaning of the Russian Revolution' (1906)
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Eristic_Escalation#Law_of_Eristic_Escalation
%
“He recollected that at Paris there is a great manufactory of laws. "What is a law?" said he to himself. "It is a measure to which, when once it is decreed, be it good or bad, everybody is bound to conform. For the execution of the same a public force is organized, and to constitute the said public force, men and money are drawn from the nation.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850): 'What Is Seen and What is Not Seen' (1850)
%
“The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished…. The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
% questionable, the only source: https://mises.org/daily/1967
%
“The Law is an opinion with a gun.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957), through the words of Dr. Floyd Ferris
%
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion- When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice- you may know that your society is doomed.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
“Under a government, good law is a public good. That is why it is not produced.”
	— David D. Friedman (1945–), 'The Machinery of Freedom' (1973)
%
“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), 'The Gulag Archipelago' (1973)
%
% #healing #doctors #medicine
“Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom.”
	— Benjamin Rush (1745–1813), signer of the Declaration of Independence
%
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
	— Marcia Angell (1939–), 'Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption' (2009)
%
“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.”
	— Max Stirner (1806–1856), German philosopher
%
%“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
%	— Charles de Montesquieu (1689–1755)
% disputed... https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_de_Montesquieu
%
“If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.”
	— Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
%
“Values in a free society are accepted voluntarily, not through coercion, and certainly not by law… every time we write a law to control private behavior, we imply that somebody has to arrive with a gun [to enforce it].”
	— Ron Paul
%
% #justice #equity #equality
“Justice is not concerned with the results of the various transactions, but only with whether the transactions themselves are fair.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'Law, Legislation and Liberty', I.6.j
%
“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.”
	— Chris Hedges (1956–)
%
% source? “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
%	— Dalai Lama XIV
%
% unsourced: "Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist." - Picasso
%
There certainly are laws, but human words cannot make one.
%
Man made laws: "Obey or die!" - It really is that simple. If you are not willing to enforce obedience at all costs, then it's really just a request, not an order.
% Bob Mahan from https://www.facebook.com/cashify/posts/757817644284705
%
%
%
%
% #natural law
%
%
%
Not all Law is created equal before Man. Some Law causes least conflict and least perverse incentives. By definition we call it Natural Law.
%
God give me grace to accept with serenity the things that can not be changed,
the Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
	— The Serenity Prayer
% from: http://youtu.be/zZvBknPV6hk?t=3h52m00s
% Accept what you cannot change, and change what you cannot accept.
%
% #serenity
“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.”
	— Epictetus (c. 55–135 AD)
%
“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”
	— Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
%
“Paradoxes only exist in language, not reality.”
	— Eric S. Raymond, aka ESR (1957–)
%
% #freedom #liberty
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“The moral law is one of the basic laws of the universe. It is likewise called the principle of Karma, the result of cause and effect, or action and reaction. There is nothing vindictive about this principle. It works impersonally like any law of nature. As the fruit is contained in the seed, so the consequences are inherent in the act. This principle guides the destinies of both people and nations. Knowledge of this principle gives human beings the power to control our own destiny.”
	— Thor Kiimaletho
%
“The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the Law of Nature for his rule.”
	— Samuel Adams (1722–1803)
%
“A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
% #educated population #population
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), 'Letters of Thomas Jefferson'
%
% full: “The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), 'Letters of Thomas Jefferson'
%
% #oppression
“It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.”
	— Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
%
“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action.”
	— Malcolm X
%
“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
	— Malcolm X
%
% #evil
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”
	— Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
%
% #evil #moral relativism
“He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.”
	— Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
%
“So long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved […] It is powerful because we have not recognized it.”
	— Gnostic scriptures, The Gospel of Philip (II, 3, 83.5-30)
%
“The state manifests as hierarchical but the state is in fact, horizontal. […] The enforcement of statism does not come from the state. Where does the enforcement of statism come from? Our fellow slaves. That's the evil genius of the state. That's the brilliance of it, is that the fences, the jail cells, the prisons that keep us in the state is each other.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), http://youtu.be/v6kRBAVl2hs?t=13m54s
%
“Your biggest obstacle [in achieving freedom] is your friends, family, neighbors, fellow-citizens that SUPPORT the government and just want you to obey the law, pay your taxes and be obedient little slaves. You certainly aren't going to change their minds by taking up arms against their God - The State.”
	— Ellen Markey
% https://www.facebook.com/ellen.agorist.markey
%
“A nation of sheep soon begets a government of wolves.”
	— Edward R. Murrow
%
“The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.”
	— Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
%
“The dealings of men with men, their separate possessions and their individual wants, and the disposition of every man to demand, and insist upon, whatever he believes to be his due, and to resent and resist all invasions of what he believes to be his rights, are continually forcing upon their minds the questions, Is this act just? or is it unjust? Is this thing mine? or is it his? And these are questions of natural law; questions which, in regard to the great mass of cases, are answered alike by the human mind everywhere.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'Natural Law' (1882), http://lysanderspooner.org/node/59
%
% #duty #demand
“Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'Natural Law' (1882), http://lysanderspooner.org/node/59
%
“This science of justice, or natural law, is the only science that tells us what are, and what are not, each man's natural, inherent, inalienable, individual rights, as against any and all other men. And to say that any, or all, other men may rightfully compel him to obey any or all such other laws as they may see fit to make, is to say that he has no rights of his own, but is their subject, their property, and their slave.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'A Letter to Grover Cleveland'
%
“A man's natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'No Treason, no 1' (1867)
%
“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.”
	— James Monroe (1758–1831), 5th president of the USA
%
“[…] so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”
	— Voltairine de Cleyre (1866 – 1912) (1694–1778), 'Anarchism and American Traditions' (1909)
%
Highly evolved people have their own conscience as pure law.
% source?	— Sun Tzu (c. 6th century BC), author of 'The Art of War'
%
“The etymology of the word “conscience” tells us that it is a special form of “knowledge” […] The peculiarity of “conscience” is that it is a knowledge of, or certainty about, the emotional value of the ideas we have concerning the motives of our actions.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'Civilization in Transition'
%
“Since olden times conscience has been understood by many people less as a psychic function than as a divine intervention; indeed, its dictates were regarded as […] the voice of God. This view shows what value and significance were, and still are, attached to the phenomenon of conscience […] Conscience […] commands the individual to obey his inner voice even at the risk of going astray.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'Civilization in Transition'
%
Tyranny, at its very core, is not always the removal of choice, but the filtering of choice – the erasure of options leaving only choices most beneficial to the system and its controllers.
% http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-04/tyranny-it-pisses-me
%
% #knowledge
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
	— James Madison (1751–1836), 'Epilogue: Securing the Republic' (1822)
%
“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.”
	— Samuel Adams (1722–1803)
%
% no, it's wrong: “Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
%	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946)
“Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
	— Stephen Covey (1932–2012), summarizing Viktor E. Frankl
%
“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”
	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946)
%
“He who has a 'why' to live for can bear almost any 'how'.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Twilight of the Idols' (1888)
%
“Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present....Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–)
%
% Und mögen es auch nur wenige gewesen sein - sie haben Beweiskraft dafür, daß man dem Menschen im Konzentrationslager alles nehmen kann, nur nicht: die letzte menschliche Freiheit, sich zu den gegebenen Verhältnissen so oder so einzustellen. Und es gab ein »So oder so«! 
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946)
%
“There are times when the ocean is not the ocean - not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most.”
	— M. L. Stedman, 'The Light Between Ocean' (2012)
%
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“Do not fear your enemies. The worst they can do is kill you. Do not fear friends. At worst, they may betray you. Fear those who do not care; they neither kill nor betray, but betrayal and murder exist because of their silent consent.”
	— Bruno Jasieński (1901–1938)
%
Οne may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so.
% Cloud Atlas
%
The belief in the legitimacy of authority is the belief in the legitimacy of slavery.
% Mark Passio
%
“Natural laws have no pity.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
% #order
“Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order.”
	— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), father of the concept of spontaneous order
%
%
%
% #karma
%
%
%
“Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.”
	— Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880), 'Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers'
%
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave.
%
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
“Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us.”
	— John N. Mitchell
%
%
%
% #knowledge #model of reality #concept forming
%
%
%
“No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'For the New Intellectual' (1961)
%
“This leads us to a crucial aspect of the cognitive role of concepts: concepts represent condensations of knowledge, which make further study and the division of cognitive labor possible.

Remember that the perceptual level of awareness is the base of man’s conceptual development. Man forms concepts, as a system of classification, whenever the scope of perceptual data becomes too great for his mind to handle. Concepts stand for specific kinds of existents, including all the characteristics of these existents, observed and not-yet-observed, known and unknown.

It is crucially important to grasp the fact that a concept is an “open-end” classification which includes the yet-to-be-discovered characteristics of a given group of existents. All of man’s knowledge rests on that fact.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”
	— Gerry Spence (1929–)
%
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
%
“Don’t be a slave to your own ignorance. Know where your opinions, especially the strongly held ones, came from and be brave enough to question them.”
	— Dean van Drasek
% http://www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/deandrasek/it-s-not-us-vs-them-don-t-succumb-close-mindedness
%
“Shall I teach you the meaning of knowledge? When you know a thing to recognize that you know it; and when you do not, to know that you do not know — that is knowledge.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects'
%
Certainty is the enemy of truth.
%
%
%
%
% #education #learning
%
%
%
% Question authority... but raise your hand first.
%
% https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/homeschooling
%
If you don't know what "trivium" means, then you've just located the problem.
%
% see also: 9 rules for being human
Education is life. Life is education.
%
“For the tools of learning [hint: trivium] are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command. To learn six subjects without remembering how they were learnt does nothing to ease the approach to a seventh; to have learnt and remembered the art of learning makes the approach to every subject an open door.”
	— Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957), 'The Lost Tools of Learning' (1947)
%
“I do not advise you what you should believe or not believe. But I do advise you that we all need to learn as much as we can about everything we can, because one thing I have learned in my life is that most of what we have ever been taught has been a lie.”
	— William (Bill) Cooper (1943–2001), Author of 'Behold a Pale Horse' (1991)
%
% #logos
“Just as eloquence, unenlightened by reason, is rash and blind, so wisdom, without the power of expression, is feeble and maimed. Speechless wisdom may sometimes increase one's personal satisfaction, but it rarely and only slightly contributes to the welfare of human society. Reason, the mother, nurse, and guardian of knowledge, as well as of virtue, frequently conceives from speech, and by this same means bears more abundant and richer fruit. Reason would remain utterly barren, or at least would fail to yield a plenteous harvest, if the faculty of speech did not bring to light its feeble conceptions, and communicate the perceptions of the prudent exercise of the human mind.

Indeed, it is this delightful and fruitful copulation of reason and speech which has given birth to so many outstanding cities, has made friends and allies of so many kingdoms, and has unified and knit together in bonds of love so many peoples.”
	— John of Salisbury (1120–1180), 'The Metalogicon - A twelfth-century defense of the verbal and logical arts of the trivium' (1159)
%
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds to think.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955), paraphrased
% full: "The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks."
% https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/05/28/not-facts/
%
% #psychology #reason
“If a person has not been exposed to this method [trivium method], it is difficult to communicate to him the serenity-of-mind and self-assurance (i.e. the spiritual abundance) caused by this competence to appropriately validate one's own thinking as well as the thinking and doctrines of others. No amount of personal counseling or therapy can generate the self-esteem of having the ability to orient one's body and mind in the world through what is his most distinguishing attribute: that of his own rational thinking applied in a systematic manner.”
	— Gene Odening (https://www.tragedyandhope.com/trivium/notes-by-gene-odening/)
%
“Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning is dangerous.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects'
%
“If I thought of a future, I dreamt of one day founding a school in which young people could learn without boredom, and would be stimulated to pose problems and discuss them; a school in which no unwanted answers to unasked questions would have to be listened to; in which one did not study for the sake of passing examinations.”
	— Karl Popper (1902–1994), 'Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography'
%
“Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985)
%
% #rewards #reinforcements
“This idea that children won't learn without outside rewards and penalties, or in the debased jargon of the behaviorists, "positive and negative reinforcements," usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we treat children long enough as if that were true, they will come to believe it is true. So many people have said to me, "If we didn't make children do things, they wouldn't do anything." Even worse, they say, "If I weren't made to do things, I wouldn't do anything." It is the creed of a slave.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985)
%
% #school #good
% full: Every so often someone asks me what I think would be an ideal school. My answer is that for me there is no such thing as an “ideal” school. A school is not an ideal. It is a social response to a difficult and wrong situation—a society which has no room and no use for children, and which has few people who are glad or even willing to have them around.
%
%The ideal would be a society in which knowledge was widely available and freely shared, and in which children were everywhere safe and welcome. Such a society would have many resources for the free exchange of knowledge and skills—materials and activity centers, something like our libraries but many more of them, and much larger and with many things in them besides books. And these centers (unlike Boston libraries these days) would be open every evening and weekend.
%
%Of course, there is no such ideal society, in this country or any other, and we are a long way from seeing one. Meanwhile, in our community of homeschoolers, we must try to come as close to making such a society as we can.
% 	— John Holt (1923–1985)
“A school is not an ideal. It is a social response to a difficult and wrong situation: a society which has no room and no use for children, and which has few people who are glad or even willing to have them around.
The ideal would be a society in which knowledge was widely available and freely shared, and in which children were everywhere safe and welcome. Such a society would have many resources for the free exchange of knowledge and skills.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985)
%
% #grading
“We destroy the love of learning in children, which is so strong when they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards, gold stars, or papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall, or A's on report cards, or honor rolls, or dean's lists, or Phi Beta Kappa keys, in short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985)
%
“The anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985), 'How Children Learn' (1967)
%
% #learning #eletiskola
“Once upon a time, all children were homeschooled. They were not sent away from home each day to a place just for children but lived, learned, worked, and played in the real world, alongside adults and other children of all ages.”
	— Rachel Gathercole, 'The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling'
%
% #unschooling
“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions — if they have any — and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985), 'Learning All The Time' (1989, posthumously)
%
% #live life #life
“I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.”
	— John Dewey (1859–1952)
%
“There is no difference between living and learning […] it is impossible and misleading and harmful to think of them as being separate.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985)
% TODO find a source
%
% #childhood trust #trusing adults #trusting parents #exploitation #adolescence
“Children, who have so much to learn in so short a time, had involved the tendency to trust adults to instruct them in the collective knowledge of our species, and this trust confers survival value. But it also makes children vulnerable to being tricked and adults who exploit this vulnerability should be deeply ashamed.”
	— Rebecca Goldstein (1950–)
%
% #learning #lerner #pupil
“The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words: Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985), 'Growing Without Schooling' magazine, no. 40 (1984)
%
% #self education
“Essentially, there is no education other than self- education, whatever the level may be. Every education is self-education, and as teachers we can only provide the environment for children’s self-education. We have to provide the most favourable conditions where, through our agency, children can educate themselves according to their own destinies.”
	— Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), 'The Child’s Changing Consciousness'
%
%“We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.”
“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself.”
	— Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), attributed to
% cited by Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People", p. 124
%
“Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.”
	— Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), English historian
%
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
	— Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
%
“The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
%
“Every child is born clever. No child is ever born idiotic. To become an idiot one needs to be educated.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2'
%
“You are asking what is truth. I can show you the way so that you can see what is the truth. You cannot see through my eyes; you cannot get a glimpse of it through my words. If you are really interested in knowing, then I can show you the path which leads to truth.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“And remember: a half-truth is far more dangerous than a whole lie, because the whole lie will be discovered by you sooner or later. […] But the half-truth is dangerous. You may never discover it, you may continue to think it is the whole truth. So the real problem is not the whole lie, the real problem is the half-truth pretending to be the whole truth.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
%
“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, and especially sports. Because of this, I wasn't worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave. […] I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement. How can a teacher understand youth with such a system? […] from the age of twelve I began to suspect authority and distrust teachers. I learned mostly at home.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955), 'Einstein and the Poet', p. 8 (1983)
%
% #teacher #master #teaching #educator
“The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don't tell you what to see.”
	— Alexandra K. Trenfor
% https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008011634639
%
“A good teacher is a good person. Simple and true. A good teacher rather likes life, is reasonably at peace with her or himself, has a sense of humor, and enjoys other people. Among other things, a good teacher is good because s/he does not seem to be dominated by a narcissistic self which demands a spotlight, or a neurotic need for power and authority, or a host of anxieties… and tremblings which reduce her/him from the leader of the class to its mechanic.”
	— Don E. Hamachek, 'Characteristics of good teachers and implications for teacher education' (1969 February, Phi Delta Kappan, 50, p. 343)
% https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL576840A/Don_E._Hamachek
%
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes.”
	— C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), 'The Abolition of Man' (1943)
%
% #teacher #master #truth
“A teacher is never a giver of truth - he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. A good teacher is merely a catalyst.”
	— Bruce Lee (1940–1973)
%
“There is no leader, there is no teacher, there is nobody to tell you what to do. You are alone in this mad, brutal world.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“You cannot transmit wisdom and insight to another person. The seed is already there. A good teacher touches the seed, allowing it to wake up, to sprout, and to grow.”
	— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–)
%
“For if you [the rulers] suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves [and outlaws] and then punish them.”
	— Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), 'Utopia', Book 1
%
“Schools are miniature universes. They encompass, on a child’s scale, the same kind of domination and repression as the most despotically organised societies.”
	— Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917)
% full: Schools are miniature universes. They encompass, on a child’s scale, the same kind of domination and repression as the most despotically organised societies. A similar sort of injustice and comparable baseness preside over their choice of idols to elevate and martyrs to torment.
%
% #reading
“’Tis better it be a year later before he can read, than that he should this way get an aversion to learning.”
	— John Locke (1632–1704), 'Some Thoughts Concerning Education'
%
“I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.”
	— Agatha Christie (1890–1976)
%
“Looking back on a 30-year teaching career full of rewards and prizes, somehow I can't completely believe that I spent my time on earth institutionalized; I can't believe that centralized schooling is allowed to exist at all as a gigantic indoctrination and sorting machine, robbing people of their children. Did it really happen? Was this my life? God help me.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
%
“Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers whom you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child's mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years? […] Back in Colonial days in America, if you proposed that kind of idea, they'd burn you at the stake, you mad person! It's a mad idea!”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
%
“That seemed crazy on the face of it, but slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
%
“I feel ashamed that so many of us cannot imagine a better way to do things than locking children up all day in cells instead of letting them grow up knowing their families, mingling with the world, assuming real obligations, striving to be independent and self-reliant and free.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
%
“I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
%
% #cognitive freedom
“You either learn your way towards writing your own script in life, or you unwittingly become an actor in someone else's script.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), http://theultimatehistorylesson.com/
%
“If he controls your ideas he will soon control your actions, because every action is preceded by an idea.”
	— Silvano Arieti (1914–1981), 'The Will to Be Human'
%
“There isn’t a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don’t need state-certified teachers to make education happen–that probably guarantees it won’t.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
%
“Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic-it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), 'Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education' (1992)
%
“The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985), 'How Children Fail' (1964)
%
“People who have never gone to school have never developed negative attitudes toward exploring their world.”
	— Grace Llewellyn
%
Child labor was not abolished, it was changed from productive work to counter-productive brainwashing, and made universal: compulsory public schooling.
%
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
	— Mark Twain (1835-1910)
%
% #hell #chaos
“Chaos should be seen as a teacher that teaches us, through the negative, what not to do.”
	— Mark Passio, http://youtu.be/atjdCbayxYM?t=46m33s
%
“Hell is truth seen too late,”
	— Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
%
%
%
% #schooling (#propaganda)
%
%
%
“It isn’t a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state’s goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government’s propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They’ll fasten the chains to their own ankles.”
	— Lew Rockwell
%
% cut part: ", whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful,"
“A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government […]; it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.”
	— John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), 'On Liberty' (1869)
% more: http://schoolingtheworld.org/film/presskit/
%
“There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.”
	— Isabel Paterson (1886–1961), 'The God of the Machine' (1943)
%
“The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”
	— Fred Astaire (1899–1987)
%
The truth cannot be told, only realized.
%
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave.
%
% #consent
“When you take the free will out of education, that makes it schooling.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), Teacher of the Year, both in New York City and State, multiple times
% TODO look for the exact point... http://youtu.be/_xgYQM5S7as?list=PL463AA90FD04EC7A2&t=21m28s (couldn't find in the transcript, probably it's from somewhere else?)
%
% #culture
“Education is a compulsory, forcible action of one person upon another. Culture is the free relation of people […] The difference between education and culture lies only in the compulsion, which education deems itself in the right to exert. Education is culture under restraint. Culture is free.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
% #culture #power
Human culture grows in the cracks of power.
%
“[compulsory schooling] …we couldn't have that! How could we maintain the social order and the economic order if we had people who became fully alive when they were young, and could get up when they're knocked down? […] How we would manage a society that didn't require managing?”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), http://youtu.be/_xgYQM5S7as?list=PL463AA90FD04EC7A2&t=21m28s
%
It's just not a reasonable way to educate a child to have them locked away from the community and segregated away from people of different ages.
% Dave Kozak at https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10159318266040249&id=712170248
%
“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”
	— Assata Shakur (1947–)
%
“Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children!”
	— Malcolm X
%
“Never argue with someone whose TV is bigger than their bookshelf.”
	— Emilia Clarke
%
If you send your kids to Caesar to be educated, do not act surprised when your kids end up being Romans.
% ?	— Voddie Bauchman
%
“When we become aware of how the school system is a conditioning agent to instill in children obedience to authority, passivity, and tolerance to tedium for the sake of external rewards, we begin to question school performance as a metric of well-being. Maybe a healthy child is one who resists schooling and standardization, not one who excels at it.”
	— Charles Eisenstein, 'The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible' (2013)
%
%
% #wise #wisdom #society
“No society wants you to become wise: it is against the investment of all societies. If people are wise they cannot be exploited. If they are intelligent they cannot be subjugated, they cannot be forced in a mechanical life, to live like robots. They will assert their individuality. They will have the fragrance of rebellion around them. They will like to live in freedom. Freedom comes with wisdom, intrinsically. They are inseparable, and no society wants people to be free. The communist society, the fascist society, the capitalist society, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian — no society — would like people to use their own intelligence because the moment they start using their intelligence they become dangerous — dangerous to the establishment, dangerous to the people who are in power, dangerous to the ‘haves’; dangerous to all kinds of oppression, exploitation, suppression; dangerous to the churches, dangerous to the states, dangerous to the nations. In fact, a wise man is afire, alive, aflame. But he cannot sell his life, he cannot serve them. He would like rather to die than to be enslaved.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), https://youtu.be/Kll1XQ90JOs
%
% short version
“No society wants you to become wise: it is against the investment of all societies. If people are wise they cannot be exploited. If they are intelligent they cannot be subjugated, they cannot be forced in a mechanical life, to live like robots. They will assert their individuality. They will have the fragrance of rebellion around them. […] In fact, a wise man is afire, alive, aflame. […] He would like rather to die than to be enslaved.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), https://youtu.be/Kll1XQ90JOs
%
“[…] the real self is dangerous: dangerous for the established church, dangerous for the state, dangerous for the crowd, dangerous for the tradition, because once a man knows his real self, he becomes an individual.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
%
% #powerful people #fellow men
%"[…] powerful people never have to prove anything to anyone. And by extension, powerful people never apologize to powerless people for the actions they take in order to remain in power. […] We also need to establish an independent educational system, starting in our homes.
“We will have taken one giant step forward when we face this reality: Powerful people never teach powerless people how to take their power away from them.”
	— John Henrik Clarke (1915–1998)
%
“Far from helping students to develop into mature, self-reliant, self-motivated individuals, schools seem to do everything they can to keep youngsters in a state of chronic, almost infantile, dependency. The pervasive atmosphere of distrust, together with rules covering the most minute aspects of existence, teach students every day that they are not people of worth, and certainly not individuals capable of regulating their own behavior.”
	— Alfie Kohn, 'Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes'
%
%“My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.”
%	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
% unfortunately no source for this
%
“The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.”
	— Ivan Illich (1926–2002), 'Deschooling Society' (1971)
%
“And that's why education — real education — is such a threat to any regime. If the state loses its grip over your mind, it loses the key to its very survival.”
	— Lew Rockwell
%
“The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.”
	— Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), 'Totalitarianism' (1968)
%
“When training beats education, civilization dies.”
	— C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)
%
“The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'What Is Money?'
% Translation by François-René Rideau (Faré): “The most urgent, is not that Government should teach, but that it should let teach. All monopolies are despicable, but the worst of them all, is the monopoly on education.”
% Original: “Le plus pressé, ce n'est pas que l'État enseigne, mais qu'il laisse enseigner. Tous les monopoles sont détestables, mais le pire de tous, c'est le monopole de l'enseignement.”
%	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), http://bastiat.org/fr/maudit_argent.html
%
“Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'Education and the Significance of Life'
%
“Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”
	— George Carlin (1937–2008), paraphrased
% full: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=692706530757763&set=a.659161710778912.1073741831.608211599207257&type=1
% George Carlin: You Have Owners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-PSCqhkWhg
%
% #compulsory education #education
“The more retarded humanity is, the more it is in the hands of the politicians, in the hands of the priests, in the hands of all kinds of vested interests. Who is interested in transforming man? They want you to be completely blind and deaf. They want you to be just a robot: efficient, not creating any trouble – no strike, no protest, no revolution, no rebellion – just a robot who is always ready to say "Yes, sir."”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Modernization […] proceeds at a limited pace within a society still characterized by traditional low-productivity methods, by the old social structure and values […] The population at large must be prepared to accept training for an economic system which increasingly confines the individual in large, disciplined organizations allocating to him narrow, specialized tasks.”
	— Walt Rostow (1916–2003), 'The Stages of Economic Growth' (1960)
%
“Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”
	— Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), 'A History of Western Philosophy' (1946), reprising Helvetius
%
“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955), 'Autobiographical Notes' (1949), slightly paraphrased
% TODO the vanilla quote is better? "It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."
%
“Public schooling is simply forced indoctrination, which has garnered its money through the theft of others, and drains the will and curiosity of children while implanting apathy, ignorance, and patriotism.”
	— Taryn Harris, 'The Renegade Variety Hour'
%
“The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“The public school system: Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority.”
	— Walter Karp
%
“The overeducated are worse off than the undereducated, having traded common sense for the illusion of knowledge.”
	— http://nav.al, https://twitter.com/naval/status/1063881150387519488
%
“Education in a scientific society may […] In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play.”
	— Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), 'The Scientific Outlook' (1954) [part 3, XIV, Education in a Scientific Society p.251]
%
“Fichte laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished. […] When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
	— Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), 'The Impact of Science on Society' (1953); talking about Johann G. Fichte, an influential figure in establishing the contemporary education system.
% on page 50 in the 1968 edition.
%
%“Schools should be factories in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products […] manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.”
%	— Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (1868–1941), future Dean of education at Stanford; 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College
% TODO find that dissertation and check it
% a softer version is here, search for 'factories': https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6730949M/Public_school_administration
%
% original version: If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will.
“The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.”
	— Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), paraphrased from 'Addresses to the German Nation' (1807). An influential figure in establishing the contemporary education system.
%
“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.”
	— Noam Chomsky (1928–)
%
“When people claim that homeschooled kids are not socialized, I like to point out that this is the opinion of someone who spent 13 years asking for permission to speak and use the restroom while getting gold stars for it.
Doing tricks for treats isn’t socialization, it’s dog training. Try to fight the urge to sniff my ass as I walk by.”
	— Kelly Diamond
% https://www.facebook.com/kellylsdiamond/posts/10153751615583230
%
% #academia #intellectuals #university
“The intellectual wants the whole society to be a school writ large, to be like the environment where he did so well and was so well appreciated. By incorporating standards of reward that are different from the wider society, the schools guarantee that some will experience downward mobility later. Those at the top of the school’s hierarchy will feel entitled to a top position, not only in that micro-society but in the wider one, a society whose system they will resent when it fails to treat them according to their self-prescribed wants and entitlements.”
	— Robert Nozick (1938–2002)
%
%
%
%
% #propaganda
%
%
%
“Reacting to propaganda by taking the opposite stance is as much being manipulated as reacting by following the proposed stance.”
	— François-René Rideau (see also: 'Hegelian dialectic')
%
% #ideas
“The idea is not to confront bad ideas but to come up with good ideas. Otherwise, your enemies define the game and you are the loyal opposition.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), 'The Primacy of Direct Experience' (1994)
%
“In any society the dominant institutions are gonna serve the interests of the people that dominate that society. So the media is not gonna be a conveyor belt for truth. It's gonna be a conveyor belt for ideology that justifies the way things are.”
	— Gábor Máté (1944–), http://youtu.be/WQuvvcLykq4?t=52m34s
%
“In a democracy, mass opinion creates power. Power diverts funds to the manufacturers of opinion, who manufacture more, etc. […] This feedback loop generates a playing field on which the most competitive ideas are not those which best correspond to reality, but those which produce the strongest feedback.”
	— Mencius Moldbug
%
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”
	— Edward Bernays (1891–1995), 'Propaganda, Chapter 1 – Organizing Chaos' (1928, Horace Liveright)
%
“Those who create "normal", rule the world.”
	— Khachig Tölölyan
% source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-8JDpT1mSM&t=23m50s
%
% #hindering #life long learning
“School prepares people for the alienating institutionalization of life, by teaching the necessity of being taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to develop independently; they no longer find it attractive to relate to each other, and the surprises that life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition are closed.”
	— Ivan Illich (1926–2002)
%
School: where defenseless little people are molded into state approved homogeneous drones that cannot think outside of the prescribed consensus. They will learn to repeat information instead of how to think for themselves, so they don't become a threat to the status quo. When they graduate they will get a job, pay their taxes, in order to perpetuate the corporate system of indentured servitude for their political overlords.
%
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
	— Michael Rivero
%
% #distraction #noise #perception management #misdirection
“The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.”
	— Noam Chomsky (1928–)
%
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
	— Noam Chomsky (1928–)
%
“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), 'Adonis and the Alphabet' (1956)
%
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
	— Hermann Göring (1893–1946), in an interview in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946)
%
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
	— William Casey (1913–1987), the director of CIA 1981-1987
% should be true: http://truthstreammedia.com/2015/01/13/cia-flashback-well-know-our-disinformation-program-is-complete-when-everything-the-american-public-believes-is-false/
%
“The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.”
	— Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), 'Mein Kampf' (1926), Chapter 6: 'War Propaganda'
%
“No amount of genius spent on the creation of propaganda will lead to success if a fundamental principle is not forever kept in mind. Propaganda must confine itself to very few points, and repeat them endlessly. Here, as with so many things in this world, persistence is the first and foremost condition of success.”
	— Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), 'Mein Kampf' (1926), Chapter 6: 'War Propaganda'
%
%“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.”
%	— Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
% TODO find source for this widespread one
%
The main reason to always choose the simplest explanation is that it leaves least leeway for parasites to manipulate you. If you don't pick the simplest explanation, you're being manipulated. And if you're being manipulated, you're an agent of evil, for only evil specializes in manipulation.
%
%
%
% #mind control (see also #obedience #disobedience)
%
%
%
% #history
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), '1984'
%
“…the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), '1984'
%
“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.”
	— Milan Kundera (1929–)
%
“Study the past if you would define the future.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
% #oppression #taxation #slavery
“To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave must know no Higher Law than his master's will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), 'Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass' (1845), a former slave
% TODO another version?
% I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.
%
You'll never get rid of oppression without first denormalizing it in the eyes of the oppressed.
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10218041156803033
%
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), 'Politics and the English Language' (1946)
%
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), '1984'
%
“The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“To eliminate statism is not to physically subdue the rulers, but to mentally liberate the ruled.”
	— Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
%
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), 'Brave New World' (1931)
%
“[…] by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), 'Brave New World Revisited' (1958)
%
% #statism #relationship #atomization #disconnectedness #divide and conquer #isolation
“The State has no intention of promoting mutual understanding and the relationship of man to man; it strives, rather, for atomization, for the psychic isolation of the individual. The more unrelated individuals are, the more consolidated the State becomes, and vice versa.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'The Undiscovered Self'
%
% #science #statistics
“Under the influence of scientific assumptions, not only the psyche but the individual man and, indeed, all individual events whatsoever suffer a leveling down and a process of blurring that distorts the picture of reality into a conceptual average.
We ought not to underestimate the psychological effect of the statistical world picture: it displaces the individual in favor of anonymous units that pile up into mass formations…
The moral responsibility of the individual is then inevitably replaced by the policy of the State (raison d’etat).”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'The Undiscovered Self'
%
% #divide
“Today, as the end of the second millennium draws near, we are again living in age filled with apocalyptic images of universal destruction. What is the significance of that split, symbolized by the ‘Iron Curtain,’ which divides humanity into two halves? What will become of our civilization, and of man himself, if the hydrogen bombs begin to go off, or if the spiritual and moral darkness of State absolutism should spread over Europe?”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“Divide and rule is one of the oldest means of mass control—standard practice since at least the Roman Empire. Within societies it works this way: If each social group can be convinced that some other group is the source of its discontent, then the population’s energy will be spent in inter-group struggles. The regime can sit on the sidelines, intervening covertly to stir things up or to guide them in desired directions. In this way most discontent can be neutralized, and force can be reserved for exceptional cases.”
	— Richard Moore
%
“The happiness of society is the end of government.”
	— John Adams (1735–1826)
%
The most efficient way to bend the will of a nation to your way of thinking is not to force it on the people… It is to indoctrinate younger generations through presenting the version of reality you wish them to see, and then only ever encouraging debate that lies within that limited spectrum.
%
“They own this world because they own your mind. That's it. It can be boiled down right to that.”
	— Mark Passio
%
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
	— Carl Sagan (1934–1996)
%
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
	— Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), 'Unpopular Essays' (1950)
%
“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
	— Steve Biko (1946–1977)
%
“If you don't control your mind, someone else will.”
	— John Allston
% TODO who is he? find a source.
%
No man is free who is not master of himself.
%
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
	— Thomas Pynchon (1937–)
% Yeah, but who will build the roads?
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/pfbid029qzQTA21nJHbpSKZgrSJVxTbqunD6uXDb2Y2z2vwiKPW1rrzTxkQF7Mnn9K4kFvzl
%
“We are caged by our cultural programming. Culture is a mass hallucination, and when you step outside the mass hallucination you see it for what it's worth.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), from the lecture 'Eros and the Eschaton' (1994)
%
% #culture
% full: From a child's point of view most adults are plainly irrational. As I get older, I begin more and more to feel that being brought up and "educated" is a form of hypnosis, brainwashing, and indoctrination that is extremely difficult to survive with one's senses intact. For me, being literate and articulate is a form of judo, of overcoming the game by its own method, though I must not be taken too seriously in this respect since I have a certain pride in my style as a Brahmin.
“As I get older, I begin more and more to feel that being brought up and "educated" is a form of hypnosis, brainwashing, and indoctrination that is extremely difficult to survive with one's senses intact.”
	— Alan Watts (1915–1973), 'In My Own Way: An Autobiography'
%
“The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined, so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison.”
	— Barbara Marciniak, 'Bringers of the Dawn' (2011)
%
% #msm
%“One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.”
%	— Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
% #TODO somehow i doubt it's from him. too deep understanding from an era without even much printing happening
%
%
%
%
% #control #welfare state
%
%
%
“In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work does not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.”
	— Leon Trotsky
%
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
	— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924), politician, mass murderer
%
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
	— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924), politician, mass murderer
%
% #fear
%full: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
%Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
%Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
%Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.
%Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
%The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.
%The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
%The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
%On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
%The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
%There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.
%I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.”
	— Plato (c. 427–347 BC)
%
“The wise prince must provide in such a way that the citizens will always be in need of him and of his government.”
	— Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), 'The Prince' (1513)
%
“You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power — he's free again.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)
%
% #fellow men
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988)
%
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
	— Charles Mackay
%
“So I hear that liberty without brakes is menacing. Who is she menacing? Who shall fear the untamed horse, but one who would tame it? Who shall fear an avalanche, but one who would stop it? Who trembles in front of liberty, but tyranny? A menacing liberty… one ought to say it's the opposite. What is frightening in her is the sound of her irons. Once those are shattered, she is no more tumultuous; but calm and wise.”
	— Anselme Bellegarrigue (ca. 1820–1890)
%
“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
	— Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), 'Notes on the Next War' (1935)
%
“Most of our lives, most of us live in realities determined by others, imprinted in our brains by education, by religion, by politics, by the authorities.”
	— Timothy Leary (1920–1996)
% http://visions.cz/audiovisual-performance/Timothy-Leary-How-to-operate-your-brain
%
%“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
%	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
% fake (unfortunately): http://fauxcapitalist.com/2009/10/28/what-thomas-jefferson-said-about-private-banks/
%
“I've had nothing to do with politics, which I've come to regard as unseemly. That others can be enthusiastic about this or that politician surprises me in the same way that it might surprise me to learn that there is such a thing as an official streptococcus fan club with a list of dues-paying members.”
	— George Selgin
%
% #welfare
“The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (1885)
%
“Every government giveaway is a takeaway from somebody else.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“It is amazing how many people think that the government's role is to give them what they want by overriding what other people want.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
% https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/843145731204616196
%
“Government programs didn’t arise because the people demanded them or because the free market was unable to provide needed services. They arose because the politicians found them to be a convenient way to buy votes with other people’s money, a convenient way to enlarge their own power, a convenient way to reward their political cronies, and a convenient way to keep people dependent on government.”
	— Harry Browne (1933–2006)
%
“What the Welfare State does to the soul of its wards is worse than the poverty it inflicts on the victims it taxes or sells into debt slavery.”
	— François-René Rideau
%
“One cannot redistribute wealth without first becoming master of all wealth; redistribution is first and foremost monopoly.”
	— Anselme Bellegarrigue (ca. 1820–1890)
%
Welfare: when you love strangers so much that you're willing to have government steal money from another stranger to help them out.
%
“Power only possesses what it takes from the people, and for the citizens to believe that they have to give what they have in order to get welfare, their common sense must have been deeply distorted.”
	— Anselme Bellegarrigue (ca. 1820–1890)
%
“Cell phones are tracking devices that make phone calls.”
	— Jacob Appelbaum (1983–)
%
% #culture #psychedelics
% from: http://www.trueactivist.com/terence-mckennas-most-mind-warping-thought-provoking-quotes-on-psychedelics-freedom-and-spirituality/
“Part of what psychedelics do is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato. Since all culture is a kind of con-game, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is one which causes people to start questioning the rules of the game.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000)
%
“Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third storey window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000)
%
% #human
“When you shed the cultural operating system, then, essentially you stand naked before the inspection of your own psyche… and it’s from that position, a position outside the cultural operating system, that we can begin to ask real questions about what does it mean to be human.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000)
%
“Until you figure out that [manipulation] is going on, we're all going to be run like rats through a maze. Culture is an intelligence test, and when you pass that test you don't give a shit about culture.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000)
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wBa488-JDY
%
%We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
% https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Rove
%
%
%
%
% #obedience #disobedience
%
%
%
% https://truthcomestolight.com/how-civil-disobedience-safeguards-freedom-and-prevents-tyranny/
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnodcLLEZw4
%
“Senki sincs reménytelenebbül rabszolgaságba vetve, mint az, aki hamisan azt hiszi, hogy szabad.”
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
	— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), 'Elective Affinities' (1809)
%
“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
	— Harriet Tubman (1822–1913)
%
Tolerance is the lube that helps slip the dildo of dysfunction into the ass of a civilized society.
%
“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.”
	— Assata Shakur (1947–), 'Assata: An Autobiography'
%
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
	— Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
%
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
%
% #do not comply #noncompliance
“…mass non-violent resistance as a method for the overthrow of tyranny, stems directly from […] the fact that all rule rests on the consent of the subject masses […] For if tyranny […] rests on mass consent, then the obvious means for its overthrow is simply by mass withdrawal of that consent. The weight of tyranny would quickly and suddenly collapse under such a non-violent revolution.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), 'Intro to Politics of Obedience'
%
“Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe.”
	— Arundhati Roy (1961–), 'Public Power in the Age of Empire'
%
“What we call mental illness is a position in a pecking order […] Disorders suppose orders and for humans, that order is not predetermined by biological factors – it is created by cultural memetics and enforced by societal institutions. For humans, there is no general psychological order from which to judge a disorder. Order is a byproduct of sociality, and when sociality is controlled by an oligarchic or monopolistic pattern of hierarchy, those in control become the "Orderly" and those who do not fit that image of order become the "Disorderly".”
	— Johan Nygren (1920–2012)
%
“The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.”
	— Thomas S. Szasz (1920–2012)
%
% another wording: The only true political virtue is obedience to authority, and the only true political sin is independence. Independence renders authority useless, and that is what infuriates it so.
“There is only one political sin: independence; and only one political virtue: obedience. To put it differently, there is only one offense against authority: self-control; and only one obeisance to it: submission to control by authority.”
	— Thomas S. Szasz (1920–2012), 'The Control of Conduct: Authority Versus Autonomy' (1975), http://www.szasz.com/conduct.html
%
% #powerful people #fellow men #politician
“People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorifying in becoming victimized by them.”
	— Thomas S. Szasz (1920–2012)
%
“Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”
	— Howard Zinn (1922–2010)
%
“He who obeys, does not listen to himself!”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (1885)
% #discipline
“The true opposite of obedience is not disobedience but independence. The true opposite of order is not disorder but freedom. The true opposite of control is not chaos but self-control.”
	— Jay Griffiths on parenting (http://j.mp/leavalone)
%
“I am unable to accept the idea that I should be an obedient subject of a gang of corrupt, unprincipled thugs who pontificate about freedom while enslaving the population.”
	— John Pugsley (1934–2011)
%
% #power #submit #submission #put up with #tolerate
% full: “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.”
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave.
%
“Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers.”
	— John Locke (1632–1704)
%
“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
	— Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
%
“Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.”
	— Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), Journals, entry for Feb. 3, 1860
%
“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), paraphrased from 'The Fountainhead'
% origin: "My dear fellow, who will let you?"
% "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"
% The Dean and Howard Roark in The Fountainhead
%
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
%
“I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), 'Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass' (1845), a former slave
%
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
	— Howard Zinn (1922–2010)
%
“Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
	— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism' (1895)
%
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders […] and millions have been killed because of this obedience.”
	— Howard Zinn (1922–2010)
%
% #order followers
“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages. As a precaution to ever committing major acts of evil it is our solemn duty never to do what we're told, this is the only way we can be sure.”
	— Banksy, a graffiti artist from Bristol, 'Wall and Piece'
%
%
%
% #authority (see also #obedience and #disobedience above #respect)
%
%
%
% #master #education #knowledge #truth
“All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'Freedom from the Known'
%
“I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. […] The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”
	— Stanley Milgram (1933–1984), 'Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View' (1974)
%
% full: “When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect — but do not believe him. Never put your trust into anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no matter whether he is a Nobel laureate — may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical — always think for yourself.”
% see also: one funeral at a time
“The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical — always think for yourself.”
	— Linus Pauling (1901–1994), 'Scientist and Peacemaker' (2001)
%
“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.”
	— Emma Goldman (1869–1940), 'Anarchism and Other Essays'
%
% #education
“Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, […] that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. […] accept the fact that any knowledge man acquires is acquired by his own will and effort, and that that is his distinction in the universe, that is his nature, his morality, his glory.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Galt’s Speech'
% your mind is a tool of survival. so, trust your senses, know your value, and have no pretences!
%
% full: We have to stop consuming our culture. We have to create culture. Don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time, where you are now, is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, you are disempowered. You are giving it all away to icons. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media, so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. And what is real is you and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, and your fears. And we are told no. We're unimportant, we're peripheral, get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world. Where is that at?
“We have to stop consuming our culture! We have to create culture! […] The nexus of space and time, where you are now, is the most immediate sector of your universe. […] What is real is you and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, and your fears. And we are told 'no!'. We're unimportant, we're peripheral, get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that, and then you're a player. You don't even want to play in that game! You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), from the lecture 'Eros and the Eschaton' (1994)
% Northlane - Singularity https://youtu.be/K76HlcP-c-w
%
% TODO these^ would be perfect under #education, too... what to do? :/
%
“I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers. I'm scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be "authority", and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders. I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in "authority".”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“Every person who claims to act on behalf of "authority" is demonstrating that he has accepted an utterly ridiculous lie: that his position, his badge, his office dramatically changes what behaviors are moral and what behaviors are immoral. The idea is patently insane, but is rarely recognized as such because even the victims of the enforcers share in this delusion.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“Some of us realize the self-evident truth that no election, no constitution, no legislation, and no other pseudo-religious political ritual can bestow upon anyone the right to rule another. Nothing can make a man into a rightful master; nothing can make a man into a rightful slave.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“If you want to be a great leader, you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself.
The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have, the less self-reliant people will be.
Therefore the Master says: I let go of the law, and people become honest.
I let go of economics, and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion, and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes common as grass.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC), 'Tao Te Ching' (Mitchell translation), Chapter 57
%
% #respect
“Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”.

And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”.

And they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.”
	— Brenna Twohy
% https://www.theodysseyonline.com/respect
%
“Which is scarier to you, seven billion individuals who might be negligent, stupid, maybe even malicious, and some of them might hurt you… or seven billion people, some of whom have societal permission to hurt you, to rob you, to boss you around, to cage you, even to kill you? The myth of "authority" does not serve as a check against the imperfections of mankind; it serves as an amplifier for them.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“How long would authority […] exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.”
	— Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
%
— Question authority!
— Yeah, says who?
%
“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
	— Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
%
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.”
	— John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006), 'The Age of Uncertainty' (1977)
%
%
%
% #consciousness
%
%
%
“Uniquely in us, nature opens her eyes and sees that she exists.”
	— Raymond Tallis (1946–)
% see also: Oracle of Delphi in this file
%
“The entire universe is a great theatre of mirrors.”
	— Alice Bailey (1880–1949)
%
“You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
% #inspiration
“The discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart and the revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever beyond redemption. The possibility of renewal exists so long as life exists. How to support that possibility in others and in ourselves is the ultimate question.”
	— Gábor Máté (1944–), 'In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts'
%
“The world we are experiencing today is the result of our collective consciousness, and if we want a new world, each of us must start taking responsibility for helping create it.”
	— Rosemary Fillmore Rhea
%
“Consciousness does not just passively reflect the objective material world; it plays an active role in creating reality itself.”
	— Stanislav Grof (1931–)
%
Q.  Why does "philosophy of consciousness/nature of reality" seem to interest you so much?
A.  Take away consciousness and reality and there's not much left.
	— Greg Egan, interview in Eidolon 15
%
The eye only sees what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
%
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
	— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
%
% #matter #quantum #god
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
	— Max Planck (1858–1947)
%
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulating consciousness.”
	— Max Planck (1858–1947), theoretical physicist, originated quantum theory, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918
%
“There’s some kind of ubiquitous thinking dysfunction which goes unnoticed especially by the persons themselves, and this is the horrifying part of it: somehow the self-monitoring circuit in the person is fooled by the very dysfunction it is supposed to monitor. The criminal virus controls by occluding (putting us in a sort of half sleep) so that we do not see the living quality of the world. The occlusion is self-perpetuating; it makes us unaware of it.”
	— Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)
%
%
%
%
% #intelligence #stupidity #ignorance #fool
%
%
%
“The world is not to be narrowed till it will go into the understanding… but the understanding to be expanded and opened till it can take in the image of the world as it is in fact.”
	— Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
%
“You can believe anything you want. The universe is not obliged to keep a straight face.”
	— Solomon Short
%
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988), 'Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle' (1986)
% http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002gi
% Challenger crash report appendix
%
“Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”
	— G.K. Chesterton
%
“Surprise exists in the map, not in the territory.”
	— Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979–)
%
The Dunning-Kruger effect: a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes. Corollary: the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.
% http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=full
% fdr 2487, last caller
%
% bozo the clown
“The fool considers that what he doesn't understand is either extremely stupid, or extemely intelligent, pending on how others react to it.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
	— Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) (see also: 'Dunning-Kruger effect')
%
“The quickest way to acquire self-confidence is to do exactly what you are afraid to do.” — Famous last words
%
“Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
Stupidity is an attitude.
%
“In a society of Einsteins, Einsteins take out the garbage, scrub floors, and wash dishes.”
	— Bryan Caplan http://bit.ly/afm1Kv ['til these Nips build robots]
%
%
%
% #cognitive freedom, #freethinkers
%
%
%
“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'War and Peace' (1862)
%
“There is an almost sensual longing for communion with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe.”
	— Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955)
%
“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
% #perception #observe
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
	— Aristotle (BC 384–322), 'Metaphysics'
%
Our perception of reality is relative to our personal experience of it.
%
“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“The worst enemy of clear thinking is the propensity to hypostatize, i.e. to ascribe substance or real existence to mental constructs or concepts.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science' (1962)
% http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/magic-words-and-false-gods
%
“A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or "welfare". Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal' (1966)
%
“Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.”
	— Graham Greene (1904–1991)
%
“I gradually squeezed the slavish self out of my system, and woke one fine morning feeling that real human blood flowed through my veins instead of the blood of slaves.”
	— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904), 'Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends' (1889)
%
%“Both security and freedom are acts of the imagination. Neither of them are fundamental realities.”
%	— Stephen Mitchell (–)
% who is he and where?
% https://www.facebook.com/esther.perel/photos/a.10150159983906711.295647.161559836710/10153434201306711/?type=3&theater
%
%
%
% #reason #debate #argument #rationality #irrationality
%
%
%
“Be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send.”
	— Jon Postel
%
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
“Most beliefs are held for social reasons, which is why they are not revised when met with superior arguments.”
	— Steve Patterson
% https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10158268335903925&id=503898924
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10226683786023362
%
“The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied.

They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer - and they don't want explanations that fail to give them that.” [or is in contradiction with their current hero/villain judgments]
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–), 'Dismantling America: and other controversial essays'
%
“Not to discuss with a man worthy of conversation is to waste the man. To discuss with a man not worthy of conversation is to waste words. The wise waste neither men nor words.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects'
%
“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.”
	— George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824), aka Lord Byron
%
“Don't waste your words on people who deserve your silence. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all.”
	— Mandy Hale
%
“Argument is rational discourse. It is not to be confused with quarreling. The object of argument is to get at the truth. The object of quarreling is to get at other people. There are any number of folk who, though happy to quarrel with you, are either unwilling or unable to ARGUE with you. Do not waste time and energy trying to argue with people who will not or cannot argue.”
	— D. Q. McInerny
%
“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
% "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Henry Thomas Buckle
%
%
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
%
“When you start off by telling those who disagree with you that they are not merely in error but in sin, how much of a dialogue do you expect?”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
“The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible within the individual… Rational argument can be conducted with some prospect of success only so long as the emotionality of a given situation does not exceed a certain critical degree. If the affective temperature rises above this level, the possibility of reason’s having any effect ceases and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish-fantasies. That is to say, a sort of collective possession results which rapidly develops into a psychic epidemic.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'Civilization in Transition'
%
“You cannot force anybody by arguments to take arguments seriously, or to respect his own reason.”
	— Karl Popper (1902–1994)
%
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”
	— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) (http://j.mp/factback)
%
% #conflict resolution #war #peace
“If war is the violent resolution of conflict, then peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather, the ability to resolve conflict without violence.”
	— C.T. Lawrence Butler
% http://www.oldways.org/documents/headology/a_handbook_on_formal_consensus_decision_making.pdf
%
% #shadow #projection
“The most dangerous psychological mistake is the projection of the shadow onto others; this is the root of almost all conflict.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
% source? paraphrased?
%
%
%
%
% #voting #vote #democracy
%
%
%
“There is nothing sacrosanct about the majority; the lynch mob, too, is the majority in its own domain.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), 'For a New Liberty' (1973)
%
“Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice. And all talk about them, in matters of government, is mere absurdity.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'No Treason, no 1' (1867)
%
“In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.”
	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
%
“Since outright slavery has been discredited, democracy is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept. […] Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.”
	— Joseph Sobran (1946–2010), 'The Myth of “Limited Government”' (2001), http://j.mp/1k6pbwS
% unread: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/no_author/democracy-is-the-ideal-distraction/
%
“When, among a hundred men one man dominates ninety-nine, it is iniquity and despotism. When ten dominate ninety, it is injustice and oligarchy. When fifty-one dominate forty-nine (and this only theoretically, for, in reality, among these fifty-one there are ten or twelve masters), then it is justice and liberty. Could anyone imagine anything more ridiculous and absurd than this reasoning?”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Law of Love and the Law of Violence' (1908)
%
“Voting, the be all and end all of modern democratic politicians, has become a farce, if indeed it was ever anything else. By voting, the people decide only which of the oligarchs preselected for them as viable candidates will wield the whip used to flog them and will command the legion of willing accomplices and anointed lickspittles who perpetrate the countless violations of the people's natural rights. Meanwhile, the masters soothe the masses by assuring them night and day that they -- the plundered and bullied multitudes who compose the electorate -- are themselves the government.”
	— Robert Higgs (1944–)
%
Voting, n.:
  1) a process to trick your consent to be ruled by psychopaths, regardless of their actions. A reassurance ritual for evil people.
  2) the act of choosing who will represent you in the policy of caging those who disobey you.
%
V iolate
O thers
T hrough
E xtortion
%
Voting: I cannot think for myself, so I hired someone to think for you.
%
“Voting is like pushing the button in the Milgram experiment: it doesn't have any effect, but you're still an asshole for doing it.”
	— Jesse Forgione (1982–)
% https://www.facebook.com/jesse.g.forgione/posts/10153850481255569?fref=nf
%
If you vote, you get what you want regardless of the outcome: a new master. (in what we call these days a democracy)
%
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'No Treason, no 6: The Constitution Of No Authority' (1867)
%
“To take a man's property without his consent, and then to infer his consent because he attempts, by voting, to prevent that property from being used to his injury, is a very insufficient proof of his consent to support the Constitution. It is, in fact, no proof at all.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'No Treason, no 6: The Constitution Of No Authority' (1867)
%
“Voting in particular is an embarrassment, being a public display of weak character and low intelligence. Let us face the truth: Democracy, like spitting in public or the Roman games, is the proper activity of the lower intellectual and moral classes. It amounts to collusion in one's own suckering.”
	— Fred Reed (1945–), http://bit.ly/JyMgHK
%
%“Idiots vote for the same reason that idiots do rain dances: Rain dances don't actually bring any rain, and voting doesn't give them any power over the government, but it gives them the *illusion* of power.”
%	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
The advantage of democracy is that it allows for a peaceful transition of power — towards a dictatorship in the hands of demagogues.
%
“Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician's ear: 'You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you.'”
	— Wendy McElroy (1951–)
%
“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”
	— Joseph Stalin (1879–1953), a bloody murderer. 'The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary' (1992)
%
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.”
	— Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
%
% full: When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
“The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956), 'Bayard vs. Lionheart', writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun (26 July 1920)
%
“Who can represent me? Except myself, nobody can represent me. And when somebody represents millions of people, certainly he is not representing anybody except himself. You are being befooled. Indirect democracy is simply a deception. […] Only in a small commune is direct democracy possible. And direct democracy is the only democracy.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956), 'Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks' (1956)
%
“Democracy is but government of the busy, by the bully, for the bossy.”
	— Arthur Seldon: 'The Dilemma of Democracy'
%
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.”
	— Charles Bukowski (1920–1994)
%
“The great lie of democracy, its essential paradox, is that democracy is the first to be sacrificed when its security is at risk. Every state is totalitarian at heart; there are no ends to the cruelty it will go to protect itself.”
	— Ian McDonald
% source?
%
“Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
%
“I'm all in favor of the democratic principle that one idiot is as good as one genius, but I draw the line when someone takes the next step and concludes that two idiots are better than one genius.”
	— Leó Szilárd (1898–1964)
%
“Democracy is a religion too. It's the worship of jackals by jackasses.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
% via Don Boudreaux http://cafehayek.com/2010/03/mencken-on-merchants-of-idiotic-ideas.html
%
“Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The Law' (1850)
%
% #democracy #civil war
“The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that — however bloody — can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'No Treason, no 6: The Constitution Of No Authority' (1867)
%
“Statism is a system of institutionalized violence and perpetual civil war. It leaves men no choice but to fight to seize political power—to rob or be robbed, to kill or be killed. When brute force is the only criterion of social conduct, and unresisting surrender to destruction is the only alternative, even the lowest of men, even an animal—even a cornered rat—will fight. There can be no peace within an enslaved nation.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal'
%
“Democracy? I want nothing to do with a system which operates on the premise that my rights don't exist simply because I am outnumbered.”
	— R. Lee Wrights (1958–)
%
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
%
% #fiscal policy
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.”
	— Alexander Tytler (1747–1813)
% source: http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html
%
A president worth voting for wouldn't run for office.
%
Democracy is the demo version of power. (Fascism is a well known failure mode of democracy.)
%	— Talgat Abykeev
% ? no source, not even a single google hit
%
Democracy is the means by which those who adore authority and crave security of servitude can use their superior numbers to enslave those who wish to be free.
%
“Voting is the illusion of influence in exchange for the loss of freedom.”
	— Frank Karsten and Karel Beckman, 'Beyond Democracy'
%
“To-day we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed.”
	— Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), 'The Decline of the West' (1922)
%
“Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. […] Where do people think these politicians come from? […] They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. […] It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. […] So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here…like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks.”
	— George Carlin (1937–2008), http://youtu.be/CFDND9SRJbs
%
% #freedom of speech
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
	— Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
%
“I'm not stupid enough to appoint a master over myself, and I have no right to appoint a master over anyone else.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“Ya gotta vote! So when they rob you blind they can say it was with your consent.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
%
%
% #socialism #communism #marxism #leftists
%
%
%
“All you freedom-loving 'left-wing' thinkers in the West! You left laborites! You progressive American, German, and French students! As far as you are concerned, none of this amounts to much. As far as you are concerned, this book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday--but only when you yourselves hear 'hands behind your backs there!' and step ashore on our Archipelago.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), 'The Gulag Archipelago' (1973)
%
“There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism by voting. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapons'
%
“Socialism is a plan by which the inefficient, irresponsible, ineffective, unemployable, and unworthy will thrive without industry, persistence or economy.”
	– Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)
%
“Socialism: turning people into cuckolds by making them aspire to becoming cuckoos and believe they are.”
	– François-René Rideau (1973–)
%
The socialist says:
 "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
What it really advocates in practice:
 "From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed."
%
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The Law' (1850)
%
“The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'The free market and its enemies'
%
In a centralized society social status is a zero-sum game along a single hierarchy. That's why politics can never help the weak, only swap roles.
%
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
	— Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
%
“No one shall be idle if I have to work; no one shall be rich if I am poor. Thus we see, again and again, that resentment lies behind all socialist ideas.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Socialism' (1922)
%
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”
	— Margaret Thatcher
%
“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite.”
	— John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006)
%
“The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are.

Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects, to his laziness, incompetence, improvidence or simple stupidity.”
	— Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993)
%
%
%
% #truth #belief
%
%
%
“They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”
	— Epictetus (c. 55–135 AD)
%
“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.”
	— Siddhartha Gutama, aka Buddha (c. 5th century BC)
%
“Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.”
	— Siddhartha Gutama, aka Buddha (c. 5th century BC)
%
% #truth #force
“Force is the antonym and negation of thought. Understanding is not produced by a punch in the face; intellectual clarity does not flow from the muzzle of a gun; the weighing of evidence is not mediated by spasms of terror. The mind is a cognitive faculty; it cannot achieve knowledge or conviction apart from or against its perception of reality; it cannot be forced.”
	— Leonard Peikoff (1933–), 'The Ominous Parallels', pg 309
%
“A man of truth never asks you to believe. He asks you to experiment, to experience. […] If you believe in something then there is no need to explore […] all enquiry is pointless. […] Yes, you can take the belief as a hypothesis, and you can say, "Now we will enquire whether it is true or not. If it is true we will be always grateful to you. If it is not true then we will inform you that you had better change your mind."”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
	— Siddhartha Gutama, aka Buddha (c. 5th century BC)
% the "official", much less comprehensible, translation starts like this: "Do not go by revelation; Do not go by tradition; …"
%
“It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'The First and Last Freedom'
%
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
	— David Foster Wallace (1962–2008), 'Infinite Jest' (1996)
%
If you really want to get someone to see the truth, you have to get people to see their resistance to seeing the truth, not just try to force them to see the truth.
%	— Teal Swan (1984–), but i'm not sure i want to stand behind her...
%
% #compassion full: In fact, it is only when compassion is present that people allow themselves to see the truth.  Where there is no compassion, there is not trust.  If someone is compassionate toward you, you trust him enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable, to see the truth rather than reject it.  The compassion doesn't alleviate the pain; it makes the pain meaningful, make it part of the truth, makes it tolerable.
% https://mettarefugedharmanuggets.blogspot.com/2011/09/major-purpose-of-compassion-is-not-to.html
“It is only when compassion is present that people allow themselves to see the truth. […] Compassion is a kind of healing agent that helps us tolerate the hurt of seeing the truth.”
	— A.H. Almaas (1944–), 'Elements of the Real in Man (Diamond Heart, Book 1)'
%
% #truthseekers
“Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend.”
	— Rabindranath Thakur, aka Tagore (1861–1941)
%
“Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.”
	— Musashi Miyamoto (c. 1584–1645)
%
“If you want to see the truth, you must be brave enough to look.”
	— Rune Lazuli
%
% #confirmation bias #bias
Replace the joy of being proven right, with the joy of learning what's true. Seek thoughtful disagreements!
%
“You’ve stopped seeking the truth when you view doubt not as a clue to be followed but a challenge to be overcome.”
	— Peter Boghossian (1966–)
%
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“I've come to realize that the biggest problem anywhere in the world is that people's perceptions of reality are compulsively filtered through the screening mesh of what they want, and do not want, to be true.”
	— Travis Walton (1953–)
%
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
	— Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)
%
% #crowd #enlightenment
“only one attains the goal […] where there is a multitude, a crowd, […] there it is sure that no one is working, living, striving for the highest aim […] the 'crowd' is the untruth.”
	— Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), That Individual (in Kaufmann: Existentialism From Dostoevsky to Sartre)
%
“They must find it hard to take truth for authority, who have so long mistaken authority for truth.”
	— Gerald Massey (1828–1907), 'A Retort' (c. 1900)
%
“Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don't do it to anyone unless you'd also slash their tires.”
	— Black Belt Bayesian
%
“Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778)
%
“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”
	— Rabindranath Thakur, aka Tagore (1861–1941)
%
“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.”
	— Carl Sagan (1934–1996)
%
% #lie
Lie, n.:
	A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date.
%
Every lie is a debt to the truth.
%
“The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.”
	— Aristotle (BC 384–322)
%
“A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself.”
	— F. Dostoyevski (1821–1881)
%
“If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.”
	— J. Reuben Clark (1871–1961)
%
%“That, which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.”
%	— P.C. Hodgell (1951–)
%
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
	— Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
%
“People hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is they love more than the truth. They love truth when it shines warmly upon them and hate it when it rebukes them.”
	— Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
%
“It is love that sets the limits of our freedom.”
	— Alistair Begg
%
“Love and do what you will.”
	— Augustine of Hippo (354–430), 'A sermon on love'
%
“Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death.”
	— John Gilmore (1955–)
%
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
	— Christopher Hitchens (1949–)
%
When a pamphlet was published entitled "100 Authors Against Einstein", Einstein retorted: "If I were wrong, one would be enough."
%
“Seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, hold the truth and defend the truth until death.”
	— Jan Hus (1369–1415)
%
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
% in more detail: “In life, you can choose whatever you want. Be it certain actions, or a particular lifestyle, or specific thoughts, or ideologies, or people you associate and surround yourself with, or how you spend your time from moment to moment. The only thing you can't choose is the consequences of your choices. So choose consciously, wisely, and responsibly.”
%https://www.facebook.com/darius.cikanavicius/posts/1717916598233632
%
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), 'Proper Studies' (1927), 'Note on Dogma'
%
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
	— Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)
%
“There is nothing that is going to make people hate you more, and love you more, than telling the truth.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Get a man to take stolen goods and he will never complain about theft. This is the essence of democracy.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will knock down everything that stands in its way.”
	— Émile Zola (1840–1902)
%
“In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Human, All Too Human', II.293, maxim #358 (1878)
%
Humanity's greatest fear is that the truth is absolute, that truth is singular.
%
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
%
This is a bullshit free zone. We do not apologize for any inconvenience caused by truth.
%
%“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”
%	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
% no source for this
%
% TODO
% "You must realize first of all that you are the proof of everything, including yourself."
%"you are asking for the proof of truth, without explaining what is the truth you have in mind and what proof will satisfy you?
%You can prove anything, provided you trust your proof.
%But what will prove that your proof is true?"
%Nisargadatta
%
%
%
% #mathematics
%
%
%
%“If a ‘religion’ is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel has taught us that, not only is mathematics a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.”
%	— John David Barrow (1952–), 'Between Inner Space and Outer Space' (1999, p 88.)
%
“Words are only words; that's why humanity invented mathematics.”
	— Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979–), http://lesswrong.com/lw/hg/inductive_bias/
%
“Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things, you just get used to them.”
	— John von Neumann (1903–1957)
%
“Mathematics is as little a science as grammar is a language.”
	— Ernst Mayr
%
“Mathematicians are like lovers. Grant a mathematician the least principle, and he will draw from it a consequence which you must also grant him, and from this consequence another.”
	— Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle
%
“Certainly, if one needs to believe that beyond the appearances of the world there lies a permanent and transcendent reality, there is no better choice than mathematics. No other conception of reality has led to so much success, in practical mastery of the world. And it is the only religion, so far as I know, that no one has ever killed for.”
	— Lee Smolin, 'The Life of the Cosmos'
%
“Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
% http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
%
“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover.”
	— Henri Poincaré (1854–1912)
%
%
% #intellectuals
%
%
%
“A true intellectual is a man who, after reading a book and being convinced by its arguments, will shoot someone or, more likely, order someone shot.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
% https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10157978915603925&id=503898924
% Friendly reminder than the father of game theory, John von Neumann, advocated for preemptively dropping nuclear bombs on the Soviets because his mathematical models told him that nuclear war was inevitable. High IQ intellectuals can often be blithering, dangerous idiots.
%
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' (1894)
%
“Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
% #love #knowledge #intellectuals
“Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart falls out of your mouth.”
	— Anne Sexton
%
%
%
% #social pressure against truth #cognitive dissonance #alienation #groupthink
%
%
%
“The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
%
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
	— Upton Sinclair (1878–1968), 'I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked' (1935)
%
The only people who get mad at you for speaking the truth are those who are living a lie.
%
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
“A common man marvels at uncommon things; a wise man marvels at the commonplace.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”
	— Dresden James
%
“Most people will side with the tribe over the truth.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.”
	— Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
% no source
%
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring around a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation.”
	— Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), 'On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform' (1860)
%
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“Truth always rests with the minority […] because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion.”
	— Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)
% https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/26/kierkegaard-individual-crowd-conformity-minority/
%
“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”
	— Plato (c. 427–347 BC)
%
“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”
	— Anatole France (1844–1924)
%
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
	— Giordano Bruno (1548–1600, got burned at the stake)
%
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
	— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
% #belief #faith
“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
When one person suffers from delusions, we call it mental illness. When society suffers from them, we call it being normal.
%
“It's better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.”
	— Diane Grant
%
“[let theory guide your observations], but till your reputation is well established, be sparing in publishing theory. It makes persons doubt your observations.”
	— Charles Darwin (1809–1882), to a young botanist
%
“It's beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“It is humiliating to realize that when you drive yourself underground, when you fake who you are, often you do so for people you do not even like or respect.”
	— Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014)
%
%
%
%
%
% how to #live #life, #live life, #meaning of life
%
%
%
%
%
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
%
% #distractions
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
	— Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001)
%
 reason -> virtue   -> happiness
(theory -> practice -> result)
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC), through Nietzsche's perspective
%
% #sziv utja path with a #heart
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“Beautiful days do not come to you. You must walk towards them.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“Here is my secret. It is very simple: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
	— Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–1944)
%
“When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273), 'Rumi Poetry: 100 Bedtime Verses'
%
“If you want the moon, do not hide at night. If you want a rose, do not run from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
% #philosophy
“The essence of philosophy is that a man should live so that his happiness depends as little as possible from external causes.”
	— Epictetus (c. 55–135 AD)
%
“If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.”
	— Epictetus (c. 55–135 AD)
%
“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
	— Epictetus (c. 55–135 AD)
%
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”
	— Aristotle (BC 384–322)
%
% #risk
“Not taking risks one doesn't understand is often the best form of risk management.”
	— Raghuram G. Rajan
%
% #feelings #emotions
“Be confused, it’s where you begin to learn new things. Be broken, it’s where you begin to heal. Be frustrated, it’s where you start to make more authentic decisions. Be sad, because if we are brave enough we can hear our heart’s wisdom through it. Be whatever you are right now. No more hiding. You are worthy, always.”
	— S.C. Lourie
% https://lunajoycoaching.com/fear-of-emotions-emotophobia
%
% #love #relationship
“Perhaps the biggest mistake I made in the past was that I believed love was about finding the right person. In reality, love is about becoming the right person. Don’t look for the person you want to spend your life with. Become the person you want to spend your life with.”
	— Neil Strauss (1969–)
%
“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass… It's about learning to dance in the rain.”
	— Vivien Greene (1904–2003)
%
“Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods.”
	— Aristotle (BC 384–322), 'Book VII, 1323.b1'
%
“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”
	— Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005)
%
“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.”
	— Wayne Gretzky (1961–), the greatest hockey player ever
%
% #purpose
“The purpose of life, as far as I can tell, is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.”
	— Jordan Peterson (1962–)
%
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
	— Wendell Berry (1934–)
%
“You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about it width and its depth.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
% #normal #job #social norm #social pressure
“The idea that our society is best served when all family members separate in the morning, to do things they generally don't enjoy, could be the biggest fallacy ever imprinted upon humanity.”
	— Jason Christoff
%
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”
	— Ellen Goodman
%
% #judgement #discrimination #discerning #attention
“Your judgments of importance guide your focus, and so they determine what you will come to know and what you will not come to know--and so they will guide the entire course of your life.”
	— Michael Miller, 'Focus on Existence' (1998)
%
“I will have to remember ‘I am here today to cross the swamp, not to fight all the alligators.’”
	— Rosamund and Benjamin Zander, 'The Art of Possibility' (2002)
%
“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”
	— Charles Bukowski (1920–1994)
%
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
	— Charles Bukowski (1920–1994)
%
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
	— John Watson aka Ian Maclaren (1850–1907)
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDWvj_q-o8
%
“Be the love you never received.”
	— Rune Lazuli
% http://www.quotesigma.com/rune-lazuli-quotes/
%
% #habits
“It's the small habits. How you spend your mornings. How you talk to yourself. What you read and what you watch. Who you share your energy with. Who has access to you. That will change your life.”
	— Michael Tonge
%
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”
	— Aristo Onassis (1906–1975)
%
% #beauty
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.”
	— Helen Keller (1880–1968), went both deaf and blind as an infant
%
Exterior beauty, without the depth of a kind soul, is merely decoration.
%
% #patience #unmoving
“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC), 'Tao Te Ching' (trans.: Ft. S. Mitchell), http://lit.genius.com/Lao-tzu-tao-te-ching-annotated
%
“A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.”
	— Naval Ravikant
%
“Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”
	— J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), 'The Fellowship of the Ring' (1954), character Gildor
%
“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
	— Arundhati Roy (1961–)
%
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
	— Brené Brown (1965–)
%
% #boundaries
“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.”
	— Brené Brown (1965–)
%
“Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
% #deathbed #dying
“I cannot imagine a torture more vicious and terrifying than to realize in the face of one’s final days that one wasted his entire life trying to please the plethora of idiots around him, instead of educating them and himself and molding tomorrow for the better.”
	— Brandon Smith, 'Alt-Market blog'
%
% #fear
“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.”
	— James F. Byrnes
%
“Fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure; inward and outward security, with the desire to be certain, to have permanency. The continuity of permanence is sought in every direction, in virtue, in relationship, in action, in experience, in knowledge, in outward and inward things. To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
% #fear #transformation #to change fundamentally
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
	— Cynthia Occelli
%
% #creativity #mental freedom
“Not knowing enough about the ‘correct way to do things’ and doing them anyway can open up the most amazing new doorways.”
	— Richard Branson (1950–)
%
The true mark of maturity is when somebody hurts you and you try to understand their situation instead of trying to hurt them back.
%
% #happiness = reality / expectations, #unhappy
%
“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
	— Naval Ravikant
% source: https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/
%
“There are no problems — only [unclarified] projects. A problem is only a desired outcome undefined, or lack of commitment to its resolution.”
	— David Allen (1945–), 'The Elusive Inventory of Your Projects'
%
“Your head is for having ideas not for holding them.”
	— David Allen (1945–), http://youtu.be/D-3nTl8M44o?t=6m12s
%
“If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.”
	— Frank Zappa (1940–1993), 'The Real Frank Zappa Book' (1989)
%
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
	— Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
%
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
	— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922–2007)
%
“The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
% #perfectionism
Settle for disorder in lesser things for the sake of order in greater things; and therefore be content to be discontented in many things.
%
% #attention
“As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.”
	— Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)
%
“Energy is the currency of the universe. When you “pay” attention to something, you buy that experience. So when you allow your consciousness to focus on someone or something that annoys you, you feed it your energy, and it reciprocates with the experience of being annoyed. Be selective in your focus because your attention feeds the energy of it and keeps it alive, not just within you, but in the collective consciousness as well.”
	— Emily Maroutian
%
“As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is "LOVE OF ONESELF".”
	— Charles Chaplin (1889–1977)
% TODO probably not chaplin, see long.txt
% full version, much longer: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/charlie-chaplin
%
% original: You need power only when you want to do something harmful, otherwise love is enough to get everything done.
The use of power is only needed when you want to do something harmful, otherwise love is enough to get everything done.
% maybe by Osho, and supposedly also by Chaplin, but i doubt it...
%
% #rebirth #development #growth #mental flexibility #birth
“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
	— Grabriel García Márquez (1927–2014), 'Love in the Time of Cholera' (1985)
%
“He not busy being born is busy dying.”
	— Bob Dylan (1941–), lyrics of 'It’s Alright, Ma'
%
“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
% #rhetoric
“all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (1885)
%
“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”
	— Hugh Laurie (1959–)
%
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is *he* who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by *answering for* his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946)
%
“Disobedience is the foundation of a real religious man – disobedience to all priests, to all politicians, to all vested interests.

Only then can you throw the conditioning away. And the moment you are no longer conditioned, you will not ask what the goal of life is. Your whole question will go through a revolution. You will ask: How can I live more totally? How can I drown myself utterly in life? – because life is the goal of everything; hence there can be no goal for life. But you are starved, and except for death there seems to be nothing; life is slipping out of your hands and death is coming closer every moment.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
% #beauty
“Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.”
	— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
%
“We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“Life's tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid.”
	— John Wayne
%
% #truth
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
% #anxiety #foresight #present moment #time
% full: No one is more fatuously impractical than the "successful" executive who spends his whole life absorbed in frantic paper work with the objective of retiring in comfort at sixty-five, when it will all be too late. Only those who have cultivated the art of living completely in the present have any use for making plans for the future, for when the plans mature they will be able to enjoy the results. "Tomorrow never comes." I have never yet heard a preacher urging his congregation to practice that section of the Sermon on the Mount which begins, "Be not anxious for the morrow...." The truth is that people who live for the future are, as we say of the insane, "not quite all there"—or here: by over-eagerness they are perpetually missing the point. Foresight is bought at the price of anxiety, and when overused it destroys all its own advantages.
“Only those who have cultivated the art of living completely in the present have any use for making plans for the future, for when the plans mature they will be able to enjoy the results. […] The truth is that people who live for the future are, as we say of the insane, "not quite all there"—or here: by over-eagerness they are perpetually missing the point. Foresight is bought at the price of anxiety, and when overused it destroys all its own advantages.”
	— Alan Watts (1915–1973), 'Psychedelics and Religious Experience' (1968)
%
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”
	— Alan Watts (1915–1973)
%
“The meaning of life is just to be alive… It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
	— Alan Watts (1915–1973)
% http://consciouslifenews.com/alan-watts-all-life-magnificent-illusion-absolutely-be-afraid/
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcPWU59Luoc
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdqVF7-8wng
%
% #comfort #luxury #ascetism #discomfort #stoicism
“You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort.”
	— Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
%
“Nothing you can buy is worth having and no one you can order around is worth associating with.”
	— Marcus Aurelius (121–180), the wealthiest and most powerful man of his time.
%
% #wasting time #attention #argue with a #pig
“No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passersby, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.”
	— Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65)
%
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
%
% #inner peace #calmness #strength #rage
“Keep this thought handy when you feel a bit of rage coming on: it isn't manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real person doesn't give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance ― unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
	— Marcus Aurelius (121–180), 'Meditations'
%
When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…
% attributed to in Meditations, but i couldn't find anything like this passage in the book...
%“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…”
%	— Marcus Aurelius (121–180), the wealthiest and most powerful man of his time.
%
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
	— Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
%
Life’s barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.
%	— Rust Cohle, a character in 'True Detective'
%
“Whether you succeed or fail, you're gonna die anyway. And the worst thing that you want thrown on top of you is six feet of dirt plus regrets.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), FDR 2487, http://youtu.be/cIhY3FUbcy0?t=45m26s
%
“[Humanity] have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…”
	— Charles Chaplin (1889–1977), 'The Great Dictator' (1940)
%
In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make.
%
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
%
All men die, but few men know how to live.
%
Givers have to set limits, because takers rarely do.
%
What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
%
If you don't sacrifice for what you want, then what you want becomes the sacrifice.
%
% #speech #talk
Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:
  At the first gate, ask yourself ‘Is is true?’
  At the second gate ask, ‘Is it necessary?’
  At the third gate ask, ‘Is it kind?’
	— Sufi saying
%
“Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.”
	— Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
%
“May you live all the days of your life.”
	— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
%
% #death
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
%
“But when you die, nobody else will die for you or instead of you. It will be entirely and exclusively your own affair. That has been expected of you through your whole life, that you live it as if you were dying.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”
	— Norman Cousins
%
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
	— Mark Twain (1835-1910)
%
“Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.”
	— Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006)
%
“Drop fear of life… Because either you can be afraid or you can live; it is up to you. And what is there to be afraid of? You can’t lose anything. You have everything to gain. Drop all fears and jump totally into life.

Then one day death will come as a welcome guest, not your enemy, and you will enjoy death more than you have enjoyed life, because death has its own beauties. And death is very rare because it happens once in a while – life is everyday.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.”
	— Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
%
“That man who dares to waste one hour of time, has not discovered the value of life.”
	— Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
%
Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think.
	— Chinese Proverb
%
“The bad news is: time flies. The good news is: you're the pilot!”
	— Michael Altshuler
%
“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
	— Siddhartha Gutama, aka Buddha (c. 5th century BC)
%
“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”
	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946)
%
“Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.”
	— Chesterfield
% cited by Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People", p. 124
%
% #growth #experience #reflection
“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”
	— John Dewey (1859–1952)
%
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
%
“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
“It isn't enough to say: "I was mistaken"; one must say how one was mistaken.”
	— Claude Bernard (1813–1878), paraphrased
% Il ne suffit pas de dire: "je me suis trompé"; il faut dire comment on s'est trompé. — Claude Bernard
% in french: Gazette Hebdomadaire de Médecine et de Chirurgie of 1869-02-12.
% https://books.google.com/books?id=So5YeSDc5_EC&pg=PA106
% It's actually a summary of a course he gave on experimental sciences (as applied to animal physiology), so the exact wording might not be his, though the idea was.
%
“People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?”
	— Hillel (c. 32 BCE–7 AD)
%
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
% #success
“What is success? It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”
	— Paulo Coelho (1947–)
%
“Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
% #identity #ego #fake self
“Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
% #discipline #ego
It is difficult to conquer a man who conquers himself every day.
%
% #life is a music
“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
“Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986)
%
“When you think that everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot.”
	— Dalai Lama
%
“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”
	— Dan Millman
% #offended
%
“If you’re offended by any word in any language, it’s probably because your parents were unfit to raise a child.”
	— Doug Stanhope
%
Announcing "I'm offended" is basically telling the world that you cannot control your own emotions, so everyone else should do it for you.
%
% #anger
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
	— Epictetus (c. 55–135 AD)
%
A Saint was asked:
- "What is anger?"
- "It is a punishment we give to ourself, for somebody else's mistake."
%
Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.
%
“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept the apology you never got.”
	— Robert Brault
%
“Forgiveness does not mean that what happened was ok, it just means you no longer want to carry the pain.”
	— Jimmy Ohm
% https://www.facebook.com/jameslmcclain http://themindunleashed.org/2014/07/11-ways-live-happier-life-according-psychologist-hint-nothing-money.html
%
“You don’t ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life. It doesn’t matter whether someone is a relative, romantic interest, employer, childhood friend, or a new acquaintance — you don’t have to make room for people who cause you pain or make you feel small. It’s one thing if a person owns up to their behavior and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries, and continues to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go.”
	— Daniell Koepke
%
“Toxic people will not be changed by the alchemy of your kindness. Yes, be kind, but move on swiftly and let life be their educator.”
	— Brendon Burchard
%
% #defoo
“Not all toxic people are cruel and uncaring. Some of them love us dearly. Many of them have good intentions. Most are toxic to our being simply because their needs and way of existing in the world force us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren’t inherently bad people, but they aren’t the right people for us. And as hard as it is, we have to let them go. Life is hard enough without being around people who bring you down, and as much as you care, you can’t destroy yourself for the sake of someone else. You have to make your well-being a priority. Whether that means breaking up with someone you care about, loving a family member from a distance, letting go of a friend, or removing yourself from a situation that feels painful — you have every right to leave and create a safer space for yourself.”
	— Daniell Koepke
%
It's your road and yours alone; others may walk it *with* you, but no one will walk it *for* you…
%
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
%
What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
%
% #procrastination
Procrastination is great: it gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do.
%
“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”
	— Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005)
%
% #die #death #security
“To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be ready to die. How's that for a paradox?”
	— Tom Robbins (1932–)
%
% TODO include it?
%“Only he who recognizes that he has nothing, that he cannot possess anything, that absolute certainty is unattainable, who completely resigns himself and sacrifices all, who gives everything, who does not know anything, who abandons and neglects everything, he will receive all; to him the world of freedom opens, the world of painless contemplation and of – nothing.”
%	— L. E. J. Brouwer 1905
%
If you have a family that loves you, a few good friends, food on the table, and a roof over your head… then you're richer than you think.
%
If you expect the world to be fair with you because you are fair, you're fooling yourself. Stop bitching about the lion, and get busy learning how not to get eaten.
%
Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
%
Every time you're caring for something you shouldn't care about, you're not caring about something you should.
%
% #game of life #rules #motivation #inspiration
9 rules for being human – handed down from ancient sanskrit:

1. You will receive a body.
   You may like it or not, but it will be yours for the entire period around.
2. You will learn lessons.
   You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
   Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The 'failed' experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately works.
4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned.
   A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, then you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end.
   There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better than “Here”.
   When your 'there' has become 'here', you will simply obtain another 'there' that will, again look better than 'here'.
7. Others are merely mirrors of you.
   You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you.
   You have all the tools and resources you need, what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. The answers lie inside you.
   The answers to life's questions lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
% life is exactly what you think it is
% you will forget all of this
% you can remember it whenever you want
% as an image: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-rules-for-being-human.html
%
% #walking
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
	— Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)
%
% #love #rebellion
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
	— L. R. Knost
%
“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”
	— L. R. Knost
%
% #love #heart
Cultivation of love is the ultimate rebellion against tyranny.
%
The mind: an excellent servant, but a dangerous master.
%
%
%
%
% #compassion
%
%
%
%
“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
	— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–)
%
% #reflection #others #response
“If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.”
	— Harbhajan Singh aka Yogi Bhajan (1929–2004)
%
“Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
Speak to people in a way that if they died the next day you’d be satisfied with the last thing you said to them.
%
% #surrender #suffering #hate #life
“And the miracle of life is that the moment you don’t demand, the whole existence is yours; all its joys and beauties are yours – and the people surrounding you can see it.

So don’t be disturbed because they are angry. Why shouldn’t they be? But if they are intelligent they should be angry with themselves their society, their culture and their religion, their history and their past. But if they are idiots they will be angry against you. Now, if they are idiots what can I do? What can you do? Let them enjoy their anger, hate. But they are simply punishing themselves.

This is one of the fundamentals of life: If you hate, you punish yourself. If you are angry you punish yourself. If you are loving, you reward yourself. If you are happy, you create possibilities for more happiness.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“If a person seems wicked, do not cast him away. Awaken him with your words, elevate him with your deeds, repay his injury with your kindness. Do not cast him away; cast away his wickedness.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
	— Andrew Boyd, http://www.dailyafflictions.com/affliction9.html
%
“Hurt people hurt people. That's how pain patterns gets passed on, generation after generation after generation. Break the chain today. Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness. Greet grimaces with smiles. Forgive and forget about finding fault. Love is the weapon of the future.”
	— Yehuda Berg
% https://www.facebook.com/yehuda.berg/posts/10150124377127089
% https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204413108558718&set=a.1571245011978.2069682.1561105279&type=1&theater
%
%
%
%
% #language #communication #memes #memetics
%
%
%
“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words, if you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”
	— Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)
%
% #truth also #complexity #honesty
“People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–), 'Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays'
%
“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“When words are unfit, speech is unadapted, and actions are unsuccessful.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
% #teacher
“When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. […] So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
“Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
%“Do you think they are taking you back to dark ages? They are taking you back to darker ages than any your history has known. Their goal is not the era of pre-science, but the era of pre-language. Their purpose is to deprive you of the concept on which man's mind, his life and his culture depend: the concept of an objective reality.”
%	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
Between what I think, what I try to say, what I think I say, what I actually say, what you want to hear, what you hear, what you think you understand, what you want to understand, and what you do understand, there are at least nine ways to not understand each other.
%
“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“You don’t really understand an antagonist until you understand why he’s a protagonist in his own version of the world.”
	— John Rogers
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rogers_(writer)
% IOW: They just have a factual disagreement that affects the scope of application of their shared principles.
% source: https://fee.org/articles/the-mistake-you-make-in-every-political-argument/
%
% #reality
“It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. […] We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.”
	— Edward Sapir (1884–1939), 'The Status Of Linguistics As A Science' (1929)
%
%
%
%
% #state #government #statism #taxation
%
%
%
“Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.”
	— Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
% also: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2014/10-overflow/20141023_zappa.jpg
%
The state is the mafia pretending to be a human rights organization.
%	— Dave Smith
% https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2398077876907046&id=1423005664414277
%
“There can be no such thing as 'fairness in taxation.' Taxation is nothing but organized theft, and the concept of a 'fair tax' is therefore every bit as absurd as that of 'fair theft.'”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995)
%
The government is just the armed gang that you're afraid would take over in the absence of government.
%
%“Government is barbarism in a suit and tie. […] Never mistake luxury for civility.”
%	— Amanda Rachwitz
% origin: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=272218626304888&id=100005502586831
% meme: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=719776228088847&set=np.112460376.1309860217&type=1&theater&notif_t=notify_me
%
“An expropriating property protector is a contradiction in terms.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
%
“Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.”
	— Mark Skousen (1947–)
%
“If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'A Letter to Grover Cleveland'
%
“If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can, and will, hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887)
%
“Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Some persons find this claim obviously true: taking the earnings of n hours labor is like taking n hours from the person; it is like forcing the person to work n hours for another’s purpose. Others find the claim absurd. But even these, if they object to forced labor, would oppose forcing unemployed hippies to work for the benefit of the needy. And they would also object to forcing each person to work five extra hours each week for the benefit of the needy”
	— Robert Nozick (1938–2002), 'Anarchy, State, and Utopia' (1974)
% https://jrbenjamin.com/2013/06/12/robert-nozick-on-taxation/
%
“You know what's worse than taxation without representation: taxation with representation. The former can immediately be recognized as theft, while the latter always assumes the guise of charity, thus allowing the thieves to chastise anyone who resists their crimes as greedy sociopaths who despise the community being plundered.”
	— Andrew Schweitzer
%https://www.facebook.com/adrian.parks1/posts/10211480042861925
%https://www.facebook.com/andrew.schweitzer.58/posts/1141008419314994
%
“There can be no such thing as "limited government", because there is no way to control an entity that in principle enjoys a monopoly of power.”
	— Joseph Sobran (1946–2010), 'The Myth of “Limited Government”' (2001), http://j.mp/1k6pbwS
%
“[The State is] an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers, and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots – an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
%
“Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.”
	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
% #busybodies
“Comrades, I beg of you — do not resort to compulsory taxation. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' (1966)
%
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
	— C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)
%
“You don't pay taxes… they take taxes.”
	— Chris Rock
%
“Everywhere I looked I saw the State, and the horrible withering effects it had on the human spirit. It was horribly depressing. Like waking from a restless dream to find yourself in a cage with no way out.”
	— The Dread Pirate Roberts, founder(s?) of the free market site Silk Road. Allegedly Ross Ulbricht.
%
“There are two distinct classes of men in the Nation, those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon the taxes.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
“If you want government, it is because you want to be able to impose your values on other people, and to render those values immune from being tested against reality. This is just a fact, undeniable; there is nothing else that a state brings to the table that mere mortals cannot.”
	— Kyle Bennett
%
“What government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms, and killing people. It's not good at much else.”
	— Tom Clancy (1947–2013)
%
“The government I live under has been my enemy all my active life. When it has not been engaged in silencing me it has been engaged in robbing me. So far as I can recall I have never had any contact with it that was not an outrage on my dignity and an attack on my security.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“The State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), 'Anatomy of the State' (1974)
%
% full context: Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brothers: here there are states. A state? What is that? Well! open now your ears to me, for now I will speak to you about the death of peoples. State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers are they who lay snares for the many, and call it state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there are still peoples, the state is not understood, and is hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs. This sign I give to you: every people speaks its own language of good and evil, which its neighbor does not understand. It has created its own language of laws and customs. But the state lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies; and whatever it has it has stolen. Everything in it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and bites often. It is false down to its bowels.
% TODO watch: Murray Rothbard - The Government Is Not Us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoBZLSm1WA
%
“[Government is] one set of men banded together to oppress another set of men.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Kingdom of God is Within You' (1894)
%
“Even if the absence of government really did mean anarchy in a negative, disorderly sense - which is far from being the case - even then, no anarchical disorder could be worse than the position to which government has led humanity.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
%
% #statism #superstition
“Understand then all of you, especially the young, that to want to impose an imaginary state of government on others by violence is not only a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work. Understand that this work, far from assuring the well-being of humanity, is only a lie, a more or less unconscious hypocrisy, camouflaging the lowest passions we possess.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Law of Love and the Law of Violence' (1908)
%
“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.”
	— Lord Acton (1834–1902)
%
“The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens […] Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), in a letter to his friend, Vasily Botkin.
%
“We cannot fight the State with votes, or with cameras, or even with rifles, because factually the State only exists in the mind.”
	— Davi Barker, 'Authoritarian Sociopathy', http://tinyurl.com/le64pmc
%
“Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. […] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“The State doesn't actually exist. It is just a group of individuals in costumes, listening to other people in costumes, committing massive crimes.”
	— Jeff Berwick
%
Statism: the most dangerous religion in the world.
Statist: a religious person who threatens to lock you in a cage if you disagree with him, but tries to camouflage it as a rational argument.
%
Statism: The brilliant idea that in order to be protected from people who kidnap, harass, steal and kill people… we give a small group of people the right to kidnap, imprison, harass, steal from, and kill people.
%
Statism is the utopian ideal that just the right amount of violence used by just the right people in just the right way can perfect society.

Minarchism is just saying that the "right amount of violence" is less than currently being used.
%
“Whenever you put your faith in big government for any reason, sooner or later you wind up an apologist for mass murder.”
	— Karl Hess (1923–1994)
%
“As long as we continue to believe in state coercion as a necessary means for social order, those who regard their interests as being best served through violence, will have recourse to the state, and to the detriment of the rest of us.”
	— Butler Shaffer, 'Wizards of Ozymandias'
%
“The idea of creating systems designed to threaten, coerce, and kill, and to imbue such agencies with principled legitimacy, and not expect them to lead to wars, genocides, and other tyrannical practices, expresses an innocence we can no longer afford to indulge.”
	— Butler Shaffer
%
“The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“Government is not a fact, but a fiction. The only permanent and eternal fact is people.”
	— Anselme Bellegarrigue (ca. 1820–1890)
%
“The State is a fundamentalist religion, and patriotism is merely the faith of the religion of statism.”
(God is The State; the Bible is the Constitution; The Devil is the Hobbesian human nature/individualism/freedom; the priests are the intellectuals paid by the state; Original Sin is the national debt and the social contract; Sunday School is compulsory schooling; cathedrals are the parliaments; churches are the court rooms; high priests are the judges; praying/rituals are voting/protesting/petitioning; Jesus on the cross is the national flag; the hymns are the anthems; etc.)
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
% You Were Born into a Cult! Exposing The Religion of Government
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D58_u9h5IQ0
% Why I'm finally speaking out against the world's most dangerous religion
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYOtSyrdzvQ
%
% TODO magyarul: Az Isten az állam; a Biblia az alkotmány; az ördög a hobbes-i emberi természet/individualizmus/szabadság; a papság az állam fizetésén élő értelmiség; az eredeti bűn az államadósság és a társadalmi szerződés; a hittan a közoktatás; a székesegyházak a parlamentek; a templomok a tárgyalótermek; főpapok a bírák; az imádság/szertartások a szavazások/tüntetések/kérelmek; Jézus a kereszten a nemzeti lobogó; az énekek a himnuszok; stb...
%
% Holy doctrine(laws, constitutions), pastors(congressmen), popes(president), penance/redemption(jail time/fines), excommunication(deportation), high priests(judges), churches(court rooms), cathedrals(capital building), rituals/praying(voting/protesting/petitioning/writing congressmen), idols/symbols(flags/badges/statues), hymns/chants(anthems/pledges), and whacked out fanatical followers (like you)
%
% Temples: Courthouses, capitol buildings, city halls
% Hymns: Anthems
% Priests: Judges, legislators, LEOs, petty bureaucrats
% Catechisms: "But who would build the roads, teach the children, or protect us from foreigners?"
% Prayers: Pledge of Allegiance, voting, petitions
% Penance: jail
% Tithes: taxes, way more than God's request for 10%.
%
% The State: An imaginary entity assumed to be subject to a higher morality, who is prayed to, seen as a savior who will fix the evils of the world, who is thought to be capable of performing miracles, immortal and unaccountable, rituals, holy days, priests, special costumes, holy pronouncements, claims to decide morality and goodness, persecution of heretics, holy scriptures, claims to foretell the future, says magical incantations like "god bless america" "god save the Queen" etc.
%
% #power
“Government does not grow by seizing our freedoms, but by assuming our responsibilities.”
	— Michael Cloud
%
“There's never been a good government.”
	— Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
%
Limited government is the truly utopian philosophy. No entity that forces people to participate can ever be limited. Involuntary human interaction can be as oppressive as it wants to be. There's no limit.
% source: https://www.facebook.com/cashify/posts/652663741466763 ()
%
The difference between Mafia and Government: The Mafia does not have a fifteen thousand hour system of indoctrination during your formative years to convince you its activities are something other than organized crime. [and that's how/why government took over]
%
Whatever you allow the government to do to others it will eventually do to you.
%
%
%
%
% #constitution #minarchism
%
%
%
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
	— Lysander Spooner (1808–1887), 'No Treason, no 6: The Constitution Of No Authority' (1867)
%
“The idea of a strictly limited constitutional State was a noble experiment that failed, even under the most favorable and propitious circumstances. If it failed then, why should a similar experiment fare any better now? No, it is the conservative laissez-fairist, the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, "Limit yourself"; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), 'The Case for Radical Idealism'
%
“If we have to protect it, how can it protect us?”
	— Mark Lush on the CONstitution
%
“The constitution is like a chastity belt of which the lady herself has the key.”
	— Gerard Radnitzky
%
“Apparently a government can prevent itself, and its successors indefinite, from doing bad things, just by writing a note to itself that says "don't do bad things."”
	— Mencius Moldbug on constitutions
%
Limited government libertarianism is the theory that free market capitalism is best protected by a socialist monopoly.
% https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10152992249765469
% https://twitter.com/voluntaryisms/status/327364155176787971
% "I don't know who came up with the formula, but the idea is present (though implicit) in Molinari's XIth night of the Rue St Lazare (with different words… "libertarian" was then "economist" and "socialist" was then "communist")."
%
%
%
% #nationalism #patriotism
%
%
%
“Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most undoubted meaning is for rulers nothing else but a means of realizing their ambitions and venal ends; for the governed it is a renouncing of human dignity, intelligence, and conscience, and a slavish submission to the rulers. Wherever patriotism is championed, it is preached invariably in that shape. Patriotism is slavery.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'The Open Court, Jul. 16' (1896)
%
“Nationalism does nothing but teach you how to hate people that you never met, and […] take pride in accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever.”
	— Doug Stanhope (1967–), 'No Refunds'
%
% #borders
“Every national border in Europe marks the place where two gangs of bandits got too exhausted to kill each other anymore and signed a treaty. Patriotism is the delusion that one of these gangs of bandits is better than all the others.”
	— Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007), 'The Earth Will Shake: A Novel'
%
“The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God […] or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'Patriotism and Government'
% http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/tolstoy/patriotismandgovt.html
% TODO see the rest at http://www.tentmaker.org/Quotes/nationalism_patriotism_quotes2.html
%
Nationalism, n.:
	A display of overt bias, masquerading as a virtue, which still expects to be given equal credibility when weighed against objective facts.
Or simply put: My country is better than yours because I was born in it.
%
“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”
	— Arundhati Roy (1961–), 'Come September' speech
%
% #war
“War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.”
	— Arthur Koestler (1905–1983)
%
“Our true nationality is mankind.”
	— H.G. Wells (1866–1946)
%
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'Freedom from the Known'
%
“The idea that people can be equated with their governments is one of the most pernicious beliefs afflicting humanity.”
	— Bretigne Shaffer
%
“It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778)
%
“The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”
	— Marjane Satrapi (1969–)
%
%
%
%
% #childhood #children
%
%
%
“There is a peculiar but seemingly-inevitable vanity in our treatment of children. We generally approach them as broken but repairable versions of our own perfection. What we adults do is right, you see, and children need to be controlled and corrected until they do what we do. Looking over the world as a whole, at the wars and famines and genocides and prisons and armies and environmental pillaging and national debts and squabbling politicians and bickering parents – it takes a staggering amount of chutzpah to stand over tender-minded and innocent children and continually tell them that they will be perfect as soon as they grow up to be more like us adults.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), see also: http://youtu.be/r9LelXa3U_I?t=15m18s
%
“Just because you are older and powerful you start making [children] just like you without ever thinking about what you are, where you have reached, what your status is in the inner world. You are a pauper; and you want the same for your child also?”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
% Wisdom Of Youth - Alan Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjWD0JU92lw
% Society, A Perpetual Cycle [Alan Watts] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZQRp9Mup0w
%
“The first expression of love towards the child is to leave his first seven years absolutely innocent, unconditioned, to leave him for seven years completely wild, a pagan.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“When a child comes into your life, it is time to relearn life, not teach them your ways.”
	— Sadhguru (1957–)
%
“No one is wise enough or good enough to mould the character of any child. What is wrong with our sick, neurotic world is that we have been moulded, and an adult generation that has seen two great wars and seems about to launch a third should not be trusted to mould the character of a rat.”
	— A. S. Neill (1883–1973)
%
“The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.”
	— Frank Zappa (1940–1993), 'The Howard Stern Show' (1987)
%
“The world is merely a kabuki pantomime of early childhood.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Anybody who tries to change society without examining the family is trying to push a shadow without moving the statue.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
% TODO check first
%“The ruling classes use broken and smashed up childhoods as weaponized instruments of domination around the world. This is why the government has no incentive to end child abuse, because the government needs abuse victims as enforcers… Your incredibly heartbreaking and tragic story is part of a larger picture of livestock management. Brutalize the children and you can murder foreigners. This is why we will never have peace while have a State. The State cannot survive without enforcers and enforcers cannot be created without abuse. The State is a shadow cast by child abuse.”
%	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRTv_dyPPIY
%
It takes a village to raise a child.
	— African proverb, http://youtu.be/--ZvvjfSZoY
%
“If you manipulate, coerce, and bully your children, you will have no power at all. If you lead with humility, gentleness, and by example, you will need no power at all.”
	— William Martin
% http://www.williammartinbooks.com/bio.htm
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Martin_(novelist)
%
“Successful parenting is not about controlling a child’s behavior. It is about teaching children to control their own behavior.”
	— Kelly Bartlett, 'Encouraging Words For Kids'
%
% #lie
“Compulsory apologies mostly train children to say things they don't mean - that is, to lie.”
	— Alfie Kohn, 'Unconditional Parenting'
%
% #stability #order #cosmic abandonment #baby #cry it out
“We cannot train our babies not to need us. Whether it's the middle of the day or the middle of the night, their needs are real and valid, including the need for a simple human touch. A 'trained' baby may give up on his needs being met, but the need is still there, just not the trust.”
	— L. R. Knost
%
“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”
	— L. R. Knost, 'Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages' (2013)
%
“We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010)
%
% #spanking #parenting #discipline #disciple #punishment #controlling #parenting
“[Parenting] The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion. Fear is the inseparable companion of coercion, and its inescapable consequence. If you think it your duty to make children do what you want, whether they will or not, then it follows inexorably that you must make them afraid of what will happen to them if they don’t do what you want.”
	— John Holt (1923–1985), 'How Children Fail' (1964)
%
“Discipline must come through liberty. […] We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.”
	— Maria Montessori (1870–1952), 'The Montessori Method'
%
“If controlling another human being is the goal of parenting, then force is necessary. Fear, intimi­dation, threats, power-plays, and physical pain are the means of control. But if growing healthy humans is the goal, then building trust relationships, encouraging, guiding, leading, teaching, and communicating are the tools for success.”
	— L. R. Knost, 'The Problem with Punishment'
%
“Here’s the thing, effective parenting and, more specifically, effective discipline, don’t require punishment. Equating discipline with punishment is an unfortunate, but common misconception. The root word in discipline is actually disciple which in the verb form means to guide, lead, teach, model, and encourage. In the noun form disciple means one who embraces the teaching of, follows the example of, and models their life after.”
	— L. R. Knost, 'The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline' (2013)
%
“Discipline is helping a child solve a Problem. Punishment is making a child suffer for having a problem. To raise problem solvers, focus on solution not retribution.”
	— L. R. Knost
%
“I believe no man was ever scolded out of his sins.”
	— William Cowper
%
“When a child hits a child, we call it aggression.
When a child hits an adult, we call it hostility.
When an adult hits an adult, we call it assault.
When an adult hits a child, we call it discipline.”
	— Haim G. Ginott (1922–1973)
%
“If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds either of advantage to himself.”
	— Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), 'On Pedagogy (Über Pädagogik)' (1803)
%
“Most parents assume that strict parenting produces better-behaved kids. However, research studies on discipline consistently show that strict, or authoritarian, child-raising actually produces unhappy kids who feel bad about themselves and behave worse than other kids -- and therefore get punished more!”
	— Dr. Laura Markham
% http://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/Discipline
%
“When a child can be brought to tears, and not from fear of punishment, but from repentance he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from the grief of their conduct you can be sure there is an angel nestling in their heart.”
	— Horace Mann (1796–1859), American education reformer
%
“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.”
	— Stacia Tauscher
%
“[…] without children and old people mixing in daily life a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present.”
	— John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), 'Teacher of the Year Acceptance Speech'
%
“Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be. 'The unknown person' inside of them is our hope for the future.”
	— Janusz Korczak (1879–1942), together with his 192 orphans, he was murdered by lost souls poisoned with nazi ideology -- or maybe just following orders.
%
My children don't owe me anything because they had no choice in getting born.
%
“There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children.”
	— Marianne Williamson (1952–)
%
“One generation of deeply loving parents would change the brain of the next generation, and with that, the world.”
	— Charles Raison
%
“Every child comes into this world as a gift to humanity. It is up to us, as adults, to see that they are properly taken care of and given all the love and attention they deserve. If we did so, I have no doubt our world would be drastically different and much more humane.”
	— Laurence Overmire
%
“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”
	— Neil Postman (1931–2003)
%
“What's done to children, they will do to society.”
	— Karl A. Menninger (http://psychohistory.com/)
%
% #civilization
“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
% #truth
“Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.”
	— H.G. Wells (1866–1946)
%
“Civilization is not something inborn or imperishable; it must be acquired anew by every generation, and any serious interruption in its financing or its transmission may bring it to an end. Man differs from the beast only by education, which may be defined as the technique of transmitting civilization.”
	— Will Durant (1885–1981), 'The Story of Civilization', http://batr.org/view/013103.html
%
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
	— Nelson Mandela (1918–2013)
%
“As children go, so go nations. It's that simple.”
	— Carol Bellamy
% full: But the quality of a child’s life depends on decisions made every day in households, communities and in the halls of government.  We must make those choices wisely, and with children’s best interests in mind.  If we fail to secure childhood, we will fail to reach our larger, global goals for human rights and economic development.  As children go, so go nations.  It’s that simple.
% http://www.unicef.org/media/media_24469.html
%
“When my children are grown, they will not need to spend their adult years healing from the first two decades of their lives.”
	— Dayna Martin
%
“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.
But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task of early adulthood―establishing independence and intimacy―burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships.
She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”
	— Judith Lewis Herman (1942–)
%
Religious instruction is child abuse. Inflicting a faulty reasoning process (a false epistemology) on a vulnerable child under the threat of eternal suffering is simply evil. (http://youtu.be/opM7kZZljLc)
%
“Those children who are beaten will in turn give beatings, those who are intimidated will be intimidating, those who are humiliated will impose humiliation, and those whose souls are murdered will murder.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010)
%
“[…] some people try so hard to eradicate all memories, to avoid any confrontation with the tortured, humiliated child they were that they die psychically long before their physical deaths, sometimes at the expense of their children and other people. This avoidance, this denial -- often accomplished with the help of drugs -- is comprehensible, of course, as long as the pain seems unbearable to us. But it is not. It was unbearable only for the infant who needed to deny in order to survive. Adults can live with the truth. The price they pay for their denial can be very high.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010), 'For Your Own Good'
%
“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
	— William Martin, 'The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents' (1999)
%
% #reading
“Young kids don't need to study the alphabet. They need to fall in love with songs and stories. Sing songs, read nursery rhymes and do finger plays and chants. Read to your child over and over again. Write down kids' exact words to express their ideas and feelings and use writing in their play. Let kids fall in love with storytelling and the power of words now — reading will follow later.”
	— Heather Shumaker, 'It's OK Not to Share and Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids' (2012)
%
% #comfort #friendship #trust
“The comfort that especially children need to feel with their parents.

Oh, the comfort -- the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person -- having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
	— Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887)
%
% #play
Good judgment comes from experience.
And experience?
Well, that comes from poor judgment.
%
%
%
% #happy #happiness
%
%
%
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly.
%
You can only find happiness by striving towards something else.
%
Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.
%
“It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.”
	— Rabindranath Thakur, aka Tagore (1861–1941)
%
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between [humans] and Nature shall not be broken.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
%
“Beware of Destination Addiction… a preoccupation with the idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job and with the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it will never be where you are.”
	— Robert Holden (1965–)
%
% #normal
“I think that one of the biggest hinges that separates people psychologically is whether or not unhappiness predominantly feels to you normal or abnormal.”
	— Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014)
%
It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations, and which has the ability to make the happy man sad and the sad man happy.

They presented him the words:
	"And this, too, shall pass away."
%	(https://wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass)
%
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'Anna Karenina'
%
“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), 'Brave New World' (1931)
%
% #judgment
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
“If you suffer it is because of you, if you feel blissful it is because of you. Nobody else is responsible – only you and you alone. You are your hell and your heaven too.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
% Sadhguru - Within You
% "Because everybody is like that, it seems to be normal. It is not."
% https://www.facebook.com/goalcast/videos/vb.897393153671209/1331669713576882/?type=2&theater
%
“To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.

And so it is with science.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
% what is it worth if you don't know how to use it...? while it is obviously worth a lot.
% A soldier named Nobushige came to Hakuin, and asked: "Is there really a paradise and a hell?"
%"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.
%"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.
%"You, a soldier!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar."
%Nobushige became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued: "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably much too dull to cut off my head."
%As Nobushige drew his sword Hakuin remarked: "Here open the gates of hell!"
%At these words the samurai, perceiving the master's discipline, sheathed his sword and bowed.
%"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin.
%
“Don't put your happiness in other people's hands. They'll drop it. They'll drop it every time.”
	— Christopher Barzak (1975–)
% may be another C. Barzak, but that name is rather unique
%
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experince of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
	— Denis Waitley
%
“Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
%“The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.”
%	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
% TODO find a source
%
Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.
%
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
        — Dale Carnegie
%
% #sorrow #sadness #pain
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
im always happy // even when im sad // im happy to be sad // it doesnt happen often // so its like gift for me // and gift make me happy — q
%
%
%
% #atheism #religion #god #faith
%
%
%
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” [applies symmetrically to anarchist/government, just like to atheist/god]
	— Stephen Roberts
%
Study one religion and you’ll be hooked for life. Study two religions, and you’re done in an hour.
%
“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
	— Richard Dawkins (1941–), 'The God Delusion' (2006)
%
“My religion is only a quality, a religiousness.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“The goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians.”
	— Adyashanti (1962–)
%
“Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.”
	— Alan Watts (1915–1973)
%
“Religion is a justification for irrationality, not its cause”
	— Michael Malice
%
“To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.”
	— Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
%
“The Atheist does not say "there is no god", but he says "I do not know what you mean by god; I am without the idea of god; the word god is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny god, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me.”
	— Charles Bradlaugh  (1833–1891), 'National Review' (1883–11–25)
%
If you can reconcile all the direct kill orders God gives in the bible with 'Thou shalt not kill', you can rationalize anything.
% Beckey Kane?
%
“Generally, a religion's success is directly proportional to the degree to which it is willing to treat children as empty objects to be filled up with profitable superstitions.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), http://youtu.be/DwQxp-J8k9g?t=9m15s
%
“The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.” [and statism is just another religion]
	— Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008), 'Credo' (1991)
%
“Religion allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own.”
	— Sam Harris (1967–)
%
“A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead — his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955), 'Living Philosophies'
%
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
If god doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you.
%
“I mean it. A confidence man knows he's lying; that limits his scope. But a successful shaman believes what he says — and belief is contagious; there is no limit to his scope. But I lacked the necessary confidence in my own infallibility; I could never become a prophet … just a critic — a sort of fourth-rate prophet with delusions of gender.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Stranger In A Strange Land' (1961)
%
“To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure;
 to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.”
	— David Brooks, 'The Necessity of Atheism'
%
“If the Bible proves that God exists then comic books prove the existence of Superman.”
	— seen on #Atheism IRC
%
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned."
	— Daniel C. Dennett (1942–), 'Breaking the Spell' (2006)
% https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/3692/is-the-ques-tions-that-can-t-be-an-swered-over-an-swers-that-can-t-be-ques-tion
%
“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
Atheism: going one god further in rejecting gods. http://youtu.be/x0ZqQznblZo
%
“There are a host of deities who have enjoyed long and fervent followings (including many other savior gods very like Jesus during the late Empire) who are rejected by modern Christians. Atheism is simply the rejection of one more god than most believers already reject. If everyone else, no matter how strong the conviction of their beliefs, can be dismissed as mistaken, it follows that one’s own religious beliefs are also subject to the same possibility of error.”
	— Earl Doherty
%
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
	— Stephen F Roberts
% http://freelink.wildlink.com/quote_history.php
%
Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.
%
“You tell me what you mean by God, and I'll tell you whether I believe in him or not!”
	— E. O. James
%
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.”
	— Frank Lloyd Wright
%
Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told.
Religion (government included) is doing what you're told regardless of what's right.
%
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
	— Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
%
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
% misattributed	to — Marcus Aurelius (121–180) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius#Misattributed
%
“Islamic culture, generally speaking, is one of the most fucked-up cultures in the history of humankind. Unlike most Christians, who practice and enjoy the benefits of religious hypocrisy, far too many Muslims take their religion seriously.”
	— George H. Smith
%
If your religion is worth killing for, please start with yourself!
%
Faith is not a virtue, it's the glorification of voluntary ignorance.
%
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
% attributed to https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epicurus
%
%
%
% #psychology #therapy
%
%
%
There's one thing in common in all your past failed relationships: you.
%
If you don't heal from what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you.
%
% #blessing
May all that has been reduced to noise in you, become music again!
%
“It's not forgetting that heals. It's remembering.”
	— Amy Greene
%
“It requires a great deal of physical tension and mental energy to hold back feelings and memories. This energy can lead to chronic tension, headaches, aches and pains and many other physical problems. It also keeps the body in a heightened state of stress and makes people more vulnerable to anxiety, panic attacks, illness & injury.”
	— Carolyn Ainscough & Kay Toon, 'Surviving Childhood Sexual Abuse'
%
% #pain
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961), 'Alchemical Studies' (1967)
%
“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
% #wisdom #integration
“Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“Avoiding our pain is needlessly exhausting. Pain can not be killed. When we attempt to bury our pain, it rises up from the grave of our emotions, haunting us, until we acknowledge its presence. We can heal our pain when we allow it to move through us.”
	— Jaeda DeWalt
%
“Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And if we meet that need, rather than focus on behavior, we begin to deal with the cause not the symptom.”
	— Ashleigh Warner
%
“Empowerment is something that happens throughout your healing, as courage and success in facing your memories build your self-esteem. Some of the strengths you get from taking on your buried memories does not show up in your life until long after the resolution has been achieved.”
	— Renee Fredrickson
%
“You cannot avoid facing yourself your whole life. If you avoid your truthful emotions and pain you will implode and contract into a diminished and feeble state. Growth and empowerment requires reflection and facing the frightening, ugly, hard and unbearable reality. People are often clever masters at fooling themselves and not seeing the obvious right in front of them. One of the fastest ways to move through your pain is to get a grip on reality. Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward — get real with yourself!”
	— Bryant McGill
%
% #healing
“Human sickness is so severe that few can bear to look at it. […] but those who do will become well.”
	— Vernon Howard (1918–1992)
%
“Avoiding your triggers isn’t healing. Healing happens when you’re triggered and you’re able to move through the pain, the pattern, and the story – and walk your way to a different ending.”
	— Vienna C Pharaon, 'Your Beautiful Life'
%
% #alienation #loneliness
“For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.”
	— Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998), 'Journey to Ixtlan' (1972)
%
“An old alchemist gave the following consolation to one of his disciples: "No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you."”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
% #self erasure #loneliness
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
% #narcissism
“Unreality is the hallmark of narcissism. Whether it’s idealizations, expectations of perfection, manufactured images, illusions, distortions of fact, catastrophizing or other kinds of exaggerations, denial, or outright lying, Narcissists will go to great lengths to avoid any reality that evokes shame and to promote fanatasies that sustain their grandiosity and omnipotence. They require accomplices for this, people to admire them and do their bidding.”
	— Sandy Hotchkiss, 'Why Is It Always About You? - The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism' (2003) 
%
% #modern society #society
“We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), 'The world and its double' (11 September 1993)
% https://youtu.be/PgktRt2MTKs
%
% #crisis #change
“Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
	— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
%
“Our minds create the world... but before that the world creates our minds.”
	— Gábor Máté (1944–), paraphrased, http://youtu.be/ZdO-Nyk4-jU?t=34m53s
% https://www.facebook.com/journeysmovie/videos/vb.100198974682281/1174440289410536/?type=2&theater
%
“We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world.”
	— Gábor Máté (1944–)
%
% #narrative #stories #mythology #heroes
“Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.”
	— Ben Okri (1959–)
%
% #self-erasure #erasure
“To adjust to and survive in a toxic and potentially dangerous environment, a child learns to repress their true feelings and thoughts because to do otherwise means to risk losing the caregiver-child bond. And so the child learns to comply and self-erase. Such an adult may be clueless of who they truly are and how they truly feel because they were forced very early on to repress their true self.”
	— Darius Cikanavicius, 'Human Development and Trauma' (2018)
%
% #growth
“It takes courage...to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”
	— Marianne Williamson (1952–), 'A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"' (1992)
%
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
% #cycle of violence
“As a rule, whatever we don’t deal with in our lives, we pass on to our children. Our unfinished emotional business becomes theirs. As a therapist said to me, "Children swim in their parents’ unconscious like fish swim in the sea."”
	— Gábor Máté (1944–), 'In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts' (2008)
%
% #forgiving #forgivness #foo #family #parents
“I have asked many therapists why it is that they believe their patients must forgive if they are to become well, but I have never received a halfway acceptable answer. Clearly, they had never questioned their assertion. It was, for them, as self-evident as the mistreatment with which they grew up. I cannot conceive of a society in which children are not mistreated, but respected and lovingly cared for, that would develop an ideology of forgiveness for incomprehensible cruelties. This ideology is indivisible with the command "Thou shalt not be aware" and with the repetition of that cruelty on the next generation. It is our children who pay the price for our lack of awareness. Our fear of our parents' revenge is the basis of our morality.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010), 'For Your Own Good'
%
“Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is freedom from hate.”
	— Valarie Kaur
%
% #therapist
“A therapist who has forgiven his parents for the cruelty they showed him will frequently feel the urge to suggest this same course of action to his patients as a remedy for their ills. In so doing, he is exploiting their dependence and their trust. If he is no longer in touch with his own feelings, he may indeed be unaware that in this way he is doing to others what was once done to him.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010)
%
% #circumstances #intraspecies #parasites #parasitical class
“So, when you have anxiety […] and if you then run to have people diminish your anxiety, then you are controlling your anxiety by giving up your control over reality. You do not change your circumstances if you can pay someone just to change your mind *about* your circumstances.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), 'The Evolution of the Parasitical Class: Past, Present and Future', https://youtu.be/wc3BYTQYgzQ?t=16m22s
%
Never apologize for having high standards. People who really want to be in your life will rise up to meet them.
%
Words may lie, but actions will always tell the truth.
%
“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”
	— Thomas Moore (1940–)
%
% #depression
“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”
	— Steven Winterburn
%
% #society #depression #pills #pharma
“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”
	— Theodore Kaczynski
%
“Stress, anxiety and depression are caused when we are living to please others.”
	— Paulo Coelho (1947–)
%
“Maybe depression is the most reasonable response to all the crap around us. Maybe it's the happy people who need medication.”
	— Marc Maron
% https://www.facebook.com/cashify/posts/676528499080287
% "They have prescriptions, pills to make the injustice invisible, to turn the sensitive people oblivious. But the substances that make it impossible to avoid reality, the ones that make people more sensitive, are considered hallucinogens and are banned as schedule 1 controlled substances."
%
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
	— George Eliot (1819–1880)
%
% #emotions #feelings #heart #thinking #reason
“If you are willing to stay fully present to your emotions without denial or disowning, the typical result is not the collapse of lucidity but its enhancement. In other words, feel deeply to think clearly.”
	— Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014)
%
“Nothing destroys self-worth, self-acceptance and self-love faster than denying what you feel. Without feelings, you would not know where you are in life. Nor would you know what areas you need to work on. Honor your feelings. Allow yourself to feel them.”
	— Iyanla Vanzant
%
“Those who do not weep, do not see.”
	— Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
%
“If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior.”
	— Robin Skynner (1922–2000)
%
“People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.”
	— Dan Pearce
%
“Everybody’s damaged. It’s just a question of how badly, and whether you’re healing or still bleeding.”
	— Angela N. Blount
%
“Until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.”
	— Iyanla Vanzant (1953–)
%
“If you have a weak 'no', you gonna have a weak 'yes'.”
	— Iyanla Vanzant (1953–)
%
“I am not afraid of my truth anymore and I will not omit pieces of me to make you comfortable.”
	— Alex Elle
%
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”
	— Washington Irving (1783–1859)
%
“In your journey to healing, you will learn to appreciate the many faceted qualities of others. Your early impressions will grow more accurate and you will use your trust more wisely. As your boundaries become more clearly defined, you will detect more quickly when others violate them. When the wounds are healed, the sharks will no longer circle.”
	— Richard Moskovitz, 'Lost in the Mirror'
%
“A true friendship involves two people who are both intensely focused on their own healing processes, on working on their own issues and maturing and evolving. Basically two people who are growing toward truth, and they both individually, in their own specific individual lives, have that as their purpose. And when they come together it becomes synergistic.”
	— Daniel Mackler
%
% #healing #empathy
“There are many examples of how the repression of our suffering destroys our empathy for the suffering of others.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010)
%
% #true self
“The true self is that which is in touch with reality. The false self is the aspects of your personality that are adapted to threats and no longer consciously recognizes either the adaptation or the threat.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“The true self is the epicenter of a person’s entire being. It is the total sum of everything that we are. The false-ego on the other hand, is the idea and concept we create about ourselves in the course of our lives, which typically excludes any qualities we don’t want to accept about ourselves. However, Humanity has been endowed with the freedom to choose either to obey the true self, or to give in to the temptation of the vanity and materialism of the false-ego.”
	— Ben Stewart, 'Kymatica', http://youtu.be/MkbvJFEQgJU
%
% #truth #honesty
“Being true to yourself means living in truth with each person in your life. It means refusing to say or do something that you don’t believe is right. Living in truth with other people means that you refuse to stay in any situation where you are unhappy with the behavior of another person. You refuse to tolerate it. You refuse to compromise.”
	— Brian Tracy (1944–)
% https://www.facebook.com/jlknight1969/posts/10204646054452429?notif_t=notify_me
%
“Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me. […] The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)
% not from a continuous text, but from two distinct places
%
% #spirituality
Your true self manifests when you achieve full integrity between your thoughts, emotions, and actions. You become a self-aware sovereign.
% TODO better wording? Mark Passio, Streetwise spirituality, around 47:00
%
% full: Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more - more unseen forms become manifest to him.
“Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
% #awareness
“Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.”
	— Adyashanti (1962–)
%
“Observe the mind, almost as if you’re watching from behind yourself. Observe what is watching. Without clinging on anything you’re seeing, stay in that awareness.”
	— Tulku Tsori Rinpoche
%
“Our identities are constructed from experiences. Facilitating new experiences is therefore the most effective way to bring about positive change.”
	— Mendel Kaelen
%
“Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein.”
	— William James (1843–1916), 'Principles of Psychology', vol. 1, ch. 4 (1890)
% Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and nails the countryman to his log cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert and the frozen zone. It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again. It keeps different social strata from mixing. Already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young commercial traveller, on the young doctor, on the young minister, on the young counsellor-at-law. You see the little lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the ‘shop,’ in a word, from which the man can by-and-by no more escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds. On the whole, it is best he should not escape. It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
%
I'm in therapy to learn how to deal with people who should be in therapy.
%
%
%
% #know thyself #know yourself #introspection #reflection #self discovery #growing up #growth #maturing
%
%
%
% #accept
“When I accept myself, I am freed from the burden of needing you to accept me.”
	— Steve Maraboli (1975–), 'Unapologetically You'
%
“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“When you accept yourself, the whole world accepts you.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
“Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“There comes a time when nothing is meaningful except surrendering to love.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
% TODO find a source
%
% #bloom #blossom
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
	— Anaïs Nin (1903–1977)
%
“The victim mindset dilutes the human potential. By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them.”
	— Steve Maraboli (1975–), 'Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience'
%
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”
	— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
%
“Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.”
	— G.I. Gurdjieff
%
“We'll look around and we'll find people who treat us the way we need to be treated in order to validate how we feel about ourselves... or we'll train people to treat us that way.”
	— Dr Douglas J Tataryn
%
% #perception #values
“You live within a framework of perception that's determined by your values. […] We never think of the world as something that reveals itself through our values, but of course it does! Because you look at what you want. […] Whatever you're focusing on is directed by what you value.”
	— Jordan Peterson (1962–)
% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbAZ6cFxCeY&index=2&list=PL22J3VaeABQApSdW8X71Ihe34eKN6XhCi&t=1h08m
%
“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.”
	— Anaïs Nin (1903–1977)
%
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
	— Carl Rogers (1902–1987), 'On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy'
%
“I'm attempting to explain to people that the west is predicated on the idea in some sense thet we co-create reality as individuals, each of us. That there is suffering to overcome and there is malevolence to constrain in your own heart and in the heart of other people and in the social structures. If you don't stand up and adopt that responsibility then you leave the world lesser and more cruel and more harsh than it has to be.”
	— Jordan Peterson (1962–)
%
% TODO move it somewhere else?
“Liberty is not a pill that makes men angels. What it does do is limit the extent to which evil can be expressed in the world.”
	— The Dread Pirate Roberts, founder(s?) of the free market site Silk Road. Allegedly Ross Ulbricht.
% http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion.to/index.php?topic=46460.msg499753#msg499753
%
“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.”
	— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), 'Faust'
% Dann wird bald dies bald jenes aufgeregt, Ein jeder sieht was er im Herzen trägt.
%
Know thyself!
	— a maxim inscribed in stone in the Temple of Apollo, 4th century BC
%
If a man doesn't know his own soul, which is the nearest thing to him, then what is it worth what he claims to know about others?
%“If a man knows not his own soul, which is the nearest thing to him, what is the use of his claiming to know others?”
%	— Muhammad Al-Ghazali (c. 1058–1111), 'The Alchemy of Happiness'
%
“Heed these words, you who wish to probe the depths of nature: if you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it outside. If you ignore the wonders of your own house, how do you expect to find other wonders? In you is hidden the treasure of treasures. Know Thyself and you will know the Universe and the Gods.”
	— Oracle of Delphi, (c. 8th century BC)
%
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in looking with new eyes.
% ispired by Proust: https://clearingcustoms.net/2013/12/17/what-marcel-proust-really-said-about-seeing-with-new-eyes/
% It’s Proust’s seven-volume work, Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time). The quotation above is a paraphrase of text in volume 5—The Prisoner—originally published in French, in 1923
%
% #body #trauma
“The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, and conceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child, who, still whole in spirit, will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010)
%
“Trauma comes back as a reaction, not as a memory.”
	— Bessel van der Kolk (1943–)
%
% #maturity
Maturity is working through your trauma and not using it as a never ending excuse for poor behavior.
%
“Once you label me you negate me.”
	— Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)
%
% #to be #human #potential
“To be human is not a fact, but a task.”
	— Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), paraphrased
%
% #insanity #sanity
“To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
% #society #mental health #normal
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does." They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted […]”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) quoting Dr. Erich Fromm, 'Brave New World Revisited' (1958)
%
“Millions of people never analyze themselves. Mentally they are mechanical products of the factory of their environment, preoccupied with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, working and sleeping, and going here and there to be entertained. They don't know what or why they are seeking, nor why they never realize complete happiness and lasting satisfaction. By evading self-analysis, people go on being robots, conditioned by their environment. True self-analysis is the greatest art of progress.”
	— Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), http://lumosity.com
%
“When we see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing life as it really is and others as they really are. When I have a thought about you, that’s something I’ve created. I’ve turned you into an idea. In a certain sense, if I have an idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made you into something very small. This is the way of human beings, this is what we do to each other.”
	— Adyashanti (1962–)
%
% full: I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
%
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
	— Franz Kafka (1883–1924)
%
“I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face.”
	— Franz Kafka (1883–1924)
%
“The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed), 'Apology' (399 BC)
%
“Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself.”
	— Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
%
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
	— Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), 'Civil Disobedience and Other Essays'
%
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
% from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/
%
“Step into the fire of self-discovery. This fire will not burn you, it will only burn what you are not.”
	— Mooji (1954–)
%
% #complain
“To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–)
% http://www.holistic-alternative-practioners.com/Eckhart-Tolle-Quotes.html
%
“Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring the fact that it no longer exists, continuing to fear and avoid dangers that, although once real, have not been real for a long time.”
	— Alice Miller (1923–2010), 'The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self'
%
“Each individual best promotes his own self-interest by peaceful, social cooperation as in the free market. Indeed, the more I make of myself the more are others served by my existence […] The way to assume 'social responsibility' is for the individual to rise […] as far as possible.”
	— Leonard E. Read (1898–1983), 'Let Freedom Reign' (1969)
%
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
	— Edward Estlin Cummings (1894–1962)
%
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
% Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
%“When an inner situation is not made conscious it appears outside as fate.”
%“Whatever is not conscious will be experienced as fate.”
%	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
“Self knowledge is always bad news.”
	— John Barth (1930–)
%
“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
%
%
% #friends #friendship #trust #comfort human #relation
%
%
%
%"- The truth is that I've been too considerate, and so became unintentionally cruel…
% - I understand.
% - No, you don't understand! We don't speak the same language!"
%(Ingmar Bergman - Smultronstället)
%
“Telling the truth and making someone cry is better than telling a lie and making someone smile.”
	— Paulo Coelho (1947–)
%
% #foo #family
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
	— Richard Bach (1936–), 'Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah' (1977)
%
“A proper association is united by ideas, not by men, and its members are loyal to the ideas, not to the group.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Philosophy: Who Needs It' (1982)
%
“Some people will never like you because your spirit irritates their demons.”
	— Denzel Washington
%
% #truth #family
“If a truth burns down a relationship, a family, a community, or a society, it was only ever held together by lies. And to that I say, let it burn. I never want to live in a world where our need for 'comfort' supersedes the need to stand on a foundation only the truth can provide.”
	— Mark Groves
%
“People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don't think that's true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.”
	— Kim Culbertson, 'The Liberation of Max McTrue'
%
“Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.”
	— John Lennon (1940–1980), murdered by a stranger.
%
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
	— Dr. Seuss (1904–1991)
%
%“Open the flood gates and expose the truth of who you are, and all that will be left is people who accept it. All others will flee, you will be left with only those that are allies.”
%	— Teal Scott (http://thespiritualcatalyst.com/quotes)
%
“Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”
	— Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)
%
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
% #individuality #individualism #no #saying no
% full: “Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I. I have to contribute my potential to life; you have to contribute your potential to life. I have to discover my own being; you have to discover your own being.”
“Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis
%
“Individualism is not a kind of opposition to community. It is only the insistence that we choose those communities.”
	— Peter Jaworski
%
I am I, and you are you. I do my thing, and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
and you are not in this world to live up to mine.
If by chance we meet, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.
	— Fritz Perls (1893–1970), 'The Gestalt Prayer' (rephrased)
%
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
	— Bruce Lee (1940–1973)
%
“Walk away from people who put you down. Walk away from fights that will never be resolved. Walk away from trying to please people who will never see your worth. The more you walk away from things that poison your soul, the healthier you will be.”
	— Shaista Saba
%
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you.
%
Not my circus, not my monkeys. — Polish proverb
%
Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.
%
“If you spend time with crazy and dangerous people, remember – their personalities are socially transmitted diseases; like water poured into a container, most of us eventually turn into – or remain – whoever we surround ourselves with. We can choose our tribe, but we cannot change that our tribe is our destiny.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
% #solitude
“I like being alone. I have control over my own shit. Therefore, in order to win me over, your presence has to feel better than my solitude. You’re not competing with another person, you’re competing with my comfort zones.”
	— Horacio Jones
%
“My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.”
	— Aristotle (BC 384–322), paraphrased by Francis Bacon in 'Of Friendship'
% https://aphelis.net/whosoever-delighted-solitude-bacon/
%
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”
	— Carl Jung (1875–1961)
%
% #marriage
“Behind every great relationship are difficult and uncomfortable conversations we rarely get to see. Great relationships don’t just fall into our laps. They require people to move through their fears and insecurities and do the hard work to move wounds into healing.”
	— Vienna Pharaon
%
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
	— Maya Angelou (1928–2014)
%
“The way you treat yourself is ultimately how you will treat those you love most.”
	— Paul Conti
% 36m20s https://peterattiamd.com/timferriss/
%
When people make you feel unwanted, don't leave to make them feel sad or guilty - they won't. Leave because you no longer have a reason to stay.
%
When you have to start compromising yourself or your morals for the people around you, it's probably time to change the people around you.
%
%
%
% #relationships (romantic #love #romantic love)
%
%
%
“The greatest gift you can give someone is your own personal development. I used to say, 'If you’ll take care of me, I’ll take care of you'. Now I say, 'I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me'.”
	— Jim Rohn
%
“You cannot build a deep connection with someone who is disconnected from themselves.”
	— Yung Pueblo
% ?
%
% https://gettingthingsorted.com/rumi-poetic-love-and-wisdom-poems-lessons-for-love-and-life/
“Go find yourself first, so you can find me.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“At a distance, you only see my light. Come closer and know that I am you.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“Him that I love, I wish to be free – even from me.”
	— Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001)
%
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
%
“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“Real love is the One celebrating itself as the two.”
	— Ram Dass (1931–)
%
“You don't need another human being to make your life complete, but let's be honest. Having your wounds kissed by someone who doesn't see them as disasters in your soul, but cracks to put their love into, is the most calming thing in this world.”
	— Emery Allen
%
% #curiosity #love is curious #freedom #attachment
“You can get love only from a free agent whose uniqueness is respected by you, whose freedom is respected by you. It is out of the freedom of the other that this moment of love has happened. Don’t destroy it by trying to possess, by trying to hold, by creating a legal bondage, a marriage. Let the other be free, and remain free yourself. Don’t let anybody else possess you either. To possess or to be possessed, both are ugly. If you are possessed you lose your very soul.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #ego #love
%full: “Love and ego cannot go together. Knowledge and ego go together perfectly well, but love and ego cannot go together, not at all. They cannot keep company. They are like darkness and light: if light is there darkness cannot be. Darkness can only be if light is not there. If love is not there the ego can be; if love is there the ego cannot be. And vice versa, if ego is dropped, love arrives from all the directions. It simply starts pouring in you from everywhere.”
“Love and ego cannot go together. Knowledge and ego go together perfectly well, but love and ego cannot go together, not at all. They cannot keep company. They are like darkness and light: if light is there darkness cannot be.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'The Secret', Talk #1
%
“The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
	— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–)
%
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
	— Thomas Merton
%
“Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness.”
	— Mandy Hale
% https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-dance-connection/201503/surprising-ingredient-lasting-relationships
%
% #trauma
“People always find partners [with] exactly the same level of unresolved traumas they are at, without any exception. Now the trauma may look differently, and how it manifests may look differently, but the degree of trauma is always equal, I mean with perfect accuracy. […] And that trauma then shows up in the relationship.”
	— Gábor Máté (1944–), 'On The Spot - Az ellenség gyermekei', 48m50s
% source: 48m50s https://www.mediaklikk.hu/video/on-the-spot-az-ellenseg-gyermekei-6/
%
“Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.”
	— M. Scott Peck
%
“If there is no honesty, there is no relationship. The only degree to which there is a relationship is the degree to which you are honest. Expressing your clear desires does not make you a dictator and you telling what you think, feel, and what you want or don’t want, is just called being honest. Withholding information is a form of manipulation. It is dishonest and it’s destructive to a relationship.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“There’s nothing lonelier than empty relationships. At least when you’re alone you can be yourself, but when you’re with empty relationships you can’t even be yourself. You can be real alone, or you can be a ghost with false friends. Pulse proximity is not intimacy, and it’s worse than no friends at all.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Tact is a skill that can turn brutal honesty into just honesty. It's a skill that develops with practice, and one that's harder to use when emotions are running high. But you can't go towards someone with a verbal fist and expect a hug in return. When method matches intention, outcomes are much more peaceful.”
	— Doe Zantamata
%
“Relationships do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–)
%
“Action has meaning only in relationship; without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'Relationship', Colombo Ceylon 2nd radio talk (1950)
%
% the best present you can give to your fellow men is your own happiness combined with your attention
% #attention #presence
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”
	— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–)
%
% #love in itself
“It doesn't matter how much two people love one another if they are developmentally incompatible, or if there is not a shared willingness to become conscious. This is why they call it a relationship instead of a loveship. Love alone is not enough. If you want it to last, you have to relate to each other in ways that keep the ship afloat.”
	— Jeff Brown, 'Soulshaping' (2010)
%
% #intimacy
“People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is 'you're safe with me'- that's intimacy.”
	— Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017)
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10221140820292683
%
% #love #soulmate #searching
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
	— Thomas Merton (1915–1968), 'No Man Is an Island'
(Corollary: You cannot find a person who loves you the way you are, if you constantly lie about who you are.)
%
“I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.”
	— Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)
%
% #blue #poem
“She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew.”
	— Shel Silverstein, 'Every Thing on It'
%
"The One" is not someone but a process.
%
A boy makes his girl jealous of other women; a gentleman makes other women jealous of his girl.
%
Staying in a situation where you're unappreciated isn't called loyalty - it's called breaking your own heart…
%
Your naked body should only belong to those who fall in love with your naked soul.
% NOT from a Charlie Chaplin letter, it's a fake that has spread around.. google: "But, in my opinion, your naked body should belong to those who love your naked soul."
%
%
%
% #love
%
%
%
%
Lust cannot grow into love, but love can grow into lust.
%
Life is dear, love is dearer. Both can be given up for freedom.
%
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
% The Untethered Soul: Chapter 9 "Removing The Thorn"
% https://soundcloud.com/jasonhenson007/the-untethered-soul-chapter-9
%
% #pain #growth
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
% #goodbye #farewell
“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
% #pain #growth
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–), 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose' (2005)
%
% #core
“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
%
“Romantic love, in the full sense of the term, is an emotion possible only to the man (or woman) of unbreached self-esteem: it is his response to his own highest values in the person of another—an integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man (or woman) is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'The Voice of Reason' (1989)
%
“Love¹ is our involuntary emotional response to virtue, if we ourselves are virtuous.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), (https://youtu.be/0PO8J6SGy7o?t=51m05s, ¹: philia, as in http://j.mp/greek-love)
% http://youtu.be/udLsGJbw4Hs?t=1m43s
%
“There can be no causeless love or any sort of causeless emotion. An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
“When you start to really know someone, all his physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell in his energy, recognize the scent of his skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That’s why you can’t fall in love with beauty. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can love it with your eyes and body but not your heart. And that’s why, when you really connect with a person’s inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant.”
	— Lisa Unger (1970–), 'Beautiful Lies'
%
“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
%
“Love is always polite. It is a whisper, not even a dialogue. Love does not shout, it is not loud. Love is not even laughter; it is only a smile. It is like the soft fragrance of a flower: it does not attack, it is not aggressive. It permeates, it pervades, it overwhelms, but it doesn't conquer. It knows how to surrender, and in that very surrender is its secret of victory.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'Zorba The Buddha' - a talk given on 1979-01-28 in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
%
% #solitude
“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person--without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
% see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_to_be_alone
%
The best way to be happy with someone is to learn to be happy alone. That way the company will be a matter of choice… and not of necessity.
%
“If you love yourself, you love others. If you hate yourself, you hate others. In relationships with others, it is only you, mirrored.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
%
“Immature people falling in love destroy each other's freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
% continues: A mature person does not fall in love, he or she rises in love. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don't have the backbone, the spine; they don't have the integrity to stand alone.
%A mature person has the integrity to stand alone. And when a mature person gives love, he or she gives without any strings attached to it. When two mature persons are in love, one of the great paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much that they are almost one. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. Only freedom and love.
%
“When love first tasted the lips of being human, it started singing.”
	— Rumi (1207–1273)
%
“The first duty of love is to listen.”
	— Paul Tillich (1886–1965)
%
“Angry people want you to see how powerful they are… loving people want you to see how powerful You are.”
	— Chief Red Eagle
%
“Love doesn't scale.”
	— Eric S. Raymond, aka ESR (1957–)
%
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Stranger In A Strange Land' (1961)
%
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”
	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946)
%
%
%
%
% #politics #politician  #psychopath
%
%
%
“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
	— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
“Both politicians and journalists face situations which strain their honesty and humanity. My opinion is that politicians on the average stand up somewhat better than journalists.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“A politician is someone asking you to trust them more with power than they trust you with freedom...”
	— Kelly Diamond
% https://www.facebook.com/kellylsdiamond/posts/10156344313983230
%
“Not all men want to dominate a large number of other persons, but those who do affect the life of many.”
	— Silvano Arieti (1914–1981)
%
“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
	— P.J. O'Rourke (1947–)
%
“The politician suffers from a tremendous inferiority complex. Deep down he knows he is nothing, and he wants to prove to the world that he is huge, powerful.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
Be careful who you let on your ship, because some people will sink the whole ship just because they can’t be the captain.
%
% #fellow men
“Those with unlived creativeness try to destroy other people's creativity, just as those with unlived possibilities of consciousness try to stop other people's efforts toward consciousness; what the soul does to itself it can't help but do to others.”
	— Paul Levy
%
“Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
“The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master on a slave plantation.”
	— Frank H. Knight
% "Lippmann's The Good Society"
% The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 46, No. 6. (Dec., 1938), p. 869.
%
% #chaos
“It is just the topmost politicians who cannot let you relax, because your relaxation is their death. They want you to remain continuously tense, afraid, so that they go on playing the game that "the war is coming and we have to prepare for it."”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Politicians are successful criminals. Criminals are unsuccessful politicians. Criminals are poor, pitiable. They had tried but they failed. Politicians are of the same tribe, with only one difference: they have succeeded.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #hope #now #tomorrow
“[Politicians] can promise anything. Promises are always for tomorrow, and tomorrow never comes. […] The promises have not changed – that means certainly nothing has been achieved. The same promises are being given to you and you go on following, hoping. Hope is the greatest drug that man has invented.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“If we as a community believe in anything, we believe in feeling good in the moment. The felt presence of immediate experience. This is what has been stolen from you, by capitalism, by religion, by linear thinking, by strategizing. We’re always about to be happy, or we’re always about to be free. And while we’re about to be free and about to be happy, life passes us by. This is because western ideologies are ideologies of delayed gratification. It comes after death, after retirement, after coitus, it’s always after something that it comes. Well, I’ve got news for you, this kind of thing is chasing your own tail. The felt presence of immediate experience is the only world you will ever know. Everything beyond that is conjecture and supposition.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000)
%
% #party politics #leftright
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideas and policies, one perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority, or method.”
	— Carroll Quigley (1910–1977)
%
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“Most people think of politics as its own unique public institution governed by impartial laws dating back to the founders. Not so. It is, in fact, an industry.”
	— Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter, 'Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America' (2017)
%
“What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money.”
	— Joseph Sobran (1946–2010)
%
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
	— Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), president of the USgov
%
“A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
% source?
%
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
	— Groucho Marx (1890–1977)
%
% #fellow men
Politics, essentially, is just anti-outgroup propaganda. And its only message is: hate your fellow men for [insert something silly here].
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10209638788909087
%
Politcs, n.:
  The art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism and fear-mongering to dupe average people into accepting — or even demanding — their own enslavement.
% https://www.facebook.com/larken.rose.7/posts/1611047119175090?notif_t=notify_me
%
It isn't politics that transforms a candidate into a thief; it's your ballot that converts a thief into a politician.
%
Politician, n.:
  Corporate administrator masquerading as public servant. Elected by the ignorant, answerable to the global banking cartel.
%
Politicians are like rats: what they steal for themselves is minuscule compared to what they destroy getting it.
%
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
	— Douglas Adams, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
%
“The president's purpose is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.”
	— Douglas Adams', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
% https://www.shmoop.com/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy/politics-quotes-2.html
%
“Anyone who looks up to a politician, looks down on themselves”
	— Gerald Celente
%
“"Politics" is made up of two words, "Poli", which is Greek for "many", and "tics", which are blood sucking insects.”
	— Gore Vidal
%
“We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. We know they know we know they are lying... but they are still lying.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)
%
% #power #good intentions
“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”
	— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
%
“There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
	— Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
%
% #risk #skin in the game
“Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.”
	— Joaquín Setantí (1540-1617)
%
“Any political philosophy that is not construed as a theory of property rights fails entirely in its own objective and thus must be discarded from the outset as praxeologically meaningless.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–), 'Intimidation by Argument–Once Again', Liberty Magazine
%
“The State is not […] a social institution administered in an anti-social way. It is an anti-social institution, administered in the only way an anti-social institution can be administered, and by the kind of person who, in the nature of things, is best adapted to such service.”
	— Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945), 'Our Enemy, the State' (1935)
%
% #powerful people #fellow men
“People who go into politics do it because they have an emotional problem. It hearkens back to Wilhelm Reich talking about the mass psychology of fascism, where politics is about working out your own emotional difficulties on other people. There’s something wrong with that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want other people to do that to me – or around society in general.
So I think in the twenty-first century, politics has been shown to be, if not bad, at least full of unintended consequences. And so if you want to make a better world, forget about electing Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton or any of these politicians, but go out and do it yourself, directly.”
	— Louis Rossetto (1949–), founder of Wired, https://youtu.be/YQy0ZCx3UCY?t=37m13s
%
“It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellow men.”
	— George MacDonald
%
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.” (IOW, no sane person finds pleasure in exercising power over their fellow man)
	— Frank Herbert (1920–1986), 'Chapterhouse: Dune' (1985)
%
“War is the most readily available form of chaos.”
	— Frank Herbert (1920–1986)
%
% Car enfin le trait le plus visible de l'homme juste est de ne point vouloir du tout gouverner les autres, et de se gouverner seulement lui-même. Cela décide de tout. Autant dire que les pires gouverneront. — Alain, "Propos sur le Pouvoir", p. 44
“For ultimately, the most visible trait of a just man is to have no desire at all to rule others, and only want to rule himself. This decides everything. In other words, the worst people will rule.”
	— Émile-Auguste Chartier, aka Alain (1868–1951), 'Propos sur les pouvoirs' (1925), p. 44
% https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_%28philosophe%29
%“Mert végső soron egy igazságos ember legszembeötlőbb tulajdonsága az, hogy nem akar mások felett uralkodni, csak önmaga felett. És ezen múlik minden. Egyszerűbben fogalmazva, mindig a legalja emberek fognak uralkodni.”
	— Émile-Auguste Chartier, aka Alain (1868–1951), 'Propos sur les pouvoirs' (1925), p. 44
%
“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman’s tool is values; the bureaucrat’s tool is fear.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal' (1966)
%
“He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey.”
	— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), 'With the Iron Hand' (1773), Act I
%
“You can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love and the community to produce a kind of human paradise. But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. We are led by the least among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000), 'Culture is NOT Your Friend'
%
“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.”
	— Terence McKenna (1946–2000)
%
The pleasure of citizens discussing politics is a powertrip by proxy. By identifying themselves to the masters, they wallow in slavery.
%
In political warfare truth is the first casualty.
%
%
%
% #conspiracy theory
%
%
%
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
	— Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), 28th President of the United States, 'The New Freedom' (1913)
%
“The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller–Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes.
They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.
These international bankers and Rockefeller–Standard Oil interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country.”
	— John Francis Hylan (1868–1936), Mayor of New York City, 'Hylan Adds Pinchot to Presidency List; Foresees a Revolt' (The New York Times, 1922)
%
“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine”
	— William Blum (1933–), former State Department employee, 'Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower'
%
“Someone asked me the other day if I believe in conspiracies. Well, sure. Here’s one. It is called the political system. It is nothing if not a giant conspiracy to rob, trick and subjugate the population.”
	— Jeffrey Tucker
%
“I am a "conspiracy theorist". I believe men and women of wealth and power conspire. If you don't think so, then you are what is called "an idiot". If you believe stuff but fear the label, you are what is called "a coward".”
	— David B Collum
%
“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.”
	— John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), in a speech in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961 (2 years before his assassination)
% http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Newspaper-Publishers-Association_19610427.aspx
%
%
%
% #gun control
%
%
%
“If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. So it’s not that you are anti-gun. You’ll need the police’s guns to take away other people’s guns. So you’re very Pro-Gun, you just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral and virtuous…) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership in the hands of a small, political elite and their minions.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
%no source: “One man with a gun can control 100 without one. […] Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms.”
%	— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924), political mass murderer
%
“Let me make a short, opening, blanket comment. There are no "good guns". There are no "bad guns". Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people.”
	— Charlton Heston (1924–2008), Interview on Meet the Press (18 May 1997)
%
Whenever someone wants to disarm non-criminals, it's for the sake of power, not fighting criminals.
%
There are two kinds of pacifists: those who try to disarm the criminals, and those who try to disarm the victims.
%
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Beyond This Horizon'
%
“The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), character Mordan Claude in 'Beyond This Horizon'
%
“This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilised nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”
	— Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
%
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.”
	— Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
%
%“A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.”
%	— Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – 65 AD)
% Seneca is here describing arguments used by 'certain men,' not stating his own opinion.
%
— Why are you buying this gun?
— Why are you asking this question?
— It's the law.
— I need a gun because people vote laws like that.
% Thanks to Turion Lugol
%
“I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.”
	— R. Lee Wrights (1958–)
%
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
	— J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), 'The Two Towers' (1954), http://youtu.be/jfxdlWje5nk
%
When seconds count the police are only minutes away.
%
“The liberties of the American people [are] dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave.
%
“Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”
	— Andrew Fletcher (1653–1716)
%
Guns & bullets don't kill people — blood loss and organ damage kills people.
%	— DrSkwid, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=30197&cid=3241209
%
%
%
% #universality #principles #symmetry
%
%
%
% #tyranny
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“In matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.”
	— Jared Howe
% https://www.facebook.com/therealjaredhowe/posts/10103053495083229
%
“Metarchy is the political philosophy that holds that each individual should be compelled to live by the tenets that he or she espouses. For example, under a metarchic regime, socialists would be taxed at very high rates to support government schemes for the poor, communists would have their property seized, racists would be forbidden to work with and live near individuals of other races and nationalities, and militarists would be sent to the front line… The metarchist does not advocate any particular political philosophy, but calls those to task who violate the mandates of the political philosophies that they advocate.”
	— Charles W. Evans
% https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10153699911810469
% french: La métarchie est la philosophie politique selon laquelle chaque individu doit être forcé de vivre selon les principes qu'il ou elle professe. Par exemple, sous un régime métarchique, les socialistes seraient imposés à des taux très élevés pour financer des programmes gouvernementaux pour les pauvres, les communistes verraient leurs biens saisis, les racistes auraient l'interdiction de travailler et de vivre à proximité de personnes d'autres races et nationalités, et militaristes seraient envoyés à la ligne de front… Le métarchiste ne préconise pas de philosophie politique, mais rappelle à l'ordre ceux qui manquent aux exigences des philosophies politiques qu'ils préconisent.
%
%
%
% #egalitarianism #equality
%
%
%
“A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.”
	— Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman
%
“Humans being born with different capacities, if they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), writer, Gulag inmate
%
% #discrimination
Life is the worst of all social inequalities. To suppress inequalities, one must either resurrect all the dead people (and give life to all the potential living people), or exterminate all the actually living.
Egalitarians, since they cannot further their goal by the former method, inevitably come to further it by the latter method.
%
%
%
% #feminism #gender
%
%
%
“Shielding women from moral responsibility is a terrible form of sexism. […] We need to have the same moral standards for men and for women, because *that* my friends is real feminism.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), FDR 2499, http://youtu.be/YaqrNUKqsZg?t=1m20s (and at 11:50)
%
“Men and women working together can protect the next generation of children. And if we can protect the next generation of children, then we can empty prisons and we can empty mental hospitals, because everybody knows that it's in prison where you see those children when they have grown up.”
	— Erin Pizzey (1939–), http://youtu.be/_lxoStFBrjo?t=28m19s
%
“Feminism is just misdirected anarchism.”
	— Jennifer Mulhare
%
%
%
%
% #positive rights #rights
%
%
%
“'Need' now means wanting someone else's money. 'Greed' means wanting to keep your own. 'Compassion' is when a politician arranges the transfer.”
	— Joseph Sobran (1946–2010)
%
“Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it.”
	— Criss Jami
%
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for. That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
	— Adrian Rogers (1931–2005), 1984
% http://www.lwf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lis_quote
% http://blog.independent.org/2008/11/17/adrian-rogers-on-free-lunches/
%
The proper name of a ‘right’ to something, that requires another person's efforts, is ‘slavery’.
%
%
%
% #ethics #morality #values #virtue #evil #crime
%
%
%
% TODO https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule
%
% #ignorance #root of all evil
“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” (cf. ignore-ance with nescience)
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
Corollary: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
%
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778), 'Questions sur les miracles' (1765), paraphrased
%
% history: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/Vernon$20Shryver$20incompetence$20malice/rec.arts.sf.fandom/1JaqxckrAOc/xO5jzyejK1UJ
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10204028489975120?comment_id=10204029898770339&offset=0&total_comments=14
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor#Similar_quotations
% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Clark%27s_Law
%
Ignorance is the root cause of all evil. Since only knowledge eradicates ignorance, it is our duty and moral obligation to educate ourselves, as well as the masses around us.
% 2:18:00 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57UBuxnicOA&list=PLnzMmEt4pIb985hO8sonHThhauAyn_doB&index=2
%
“Willful ignorance in the presence of Knowledge is the measure of a bad person.”
	— Mark Passio, http://j.mp/natural-law-seminar
% 2:15:00 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57UBuxnicOA&list=PLnzMmEt4pIb985hO8sonHThhauAyn_doB&index=2
%
% #knowledge #ignorance #nescience
“True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.”
	— Karl Popper (1902–1994), as quoted by Mark Damazer
%
% #advice
“Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it […]. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of "knowledge; do not forgive or accept any breach of morality.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
“If you ask the government to impose morality, then moral questions will be decided by whoever has the most political power.”
	— Harry Browne (1933–2006)
%
“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.”
	— Jordan Peterson (1962–)
%
% #altruism
“There is one word—a single word—which can blast the morality of altruism out of existence and which it cannot withstand—the word: 'Why?' Why must man live for the sake of others? Why must he be a sacrificial animal? Why is that the good? There is no earthly reason for it—and, ladies and gentlemen, in the whole history of philosophy no earthly reason has ever been given.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
“Highly evolved people have their own conscience as pure law.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC)
%
“Nothing is noble if it’s done unwillingly or under compulsion. Every noble deed is voluntary.”
	— Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – 65 AD), 'Moral Letters' 66.16b
%
Never attribute to malice that which is *adequately* explained by stupidity. (Hanlon's razor)
%
% #end #justify #means
“Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, the fruit in the seed.”
	— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
% https://fee.org/articles/leonard-e-read-on-why-means-matter-more-than-ends/
%
% #golden rule
“Libertarians make no exceptions to the golden rule and provide no moral loophole, no double standard, for government.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), 'Myth and Truth About Libertarianism' (1979)
%
% #rules before you're born
“The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.”
	— John Rawls (1921–2002)
% a discussion: https://www.facebook.com/ross.larsson/posts/1956805537722246?comment_id=1956817537721046&reply_comment_id=1957102287692571&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D
%
% #order followers #cops #police #soldier haven't made up their mind
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
	— Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
%
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), 'The Gulag Archipelago' (1973)
%
“The whole universe is sum up in the Human Being. Devil is not a monster waiting to trap us, He is a voice inside. Look for Your Devil in Yourself, not in the Others. Don't forget that the one who knows his Devil, knows his God.”
	— Shams Tabrizi (1185–1248)
%
“The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.”
	—  Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The second greatest trick was convincing the world he is good.”
	—  Ken Ammi
%
“Many people believe that evil is the presence of something. I think it’s the absence of something.”
	— Lisa Unger (1970–), 'Sliver of Truth'
%
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
	— Edmund Burke
%
“The whole Good Cop / Bad Cop question can be disposed of much more decisively. We need not enumerate what proportion of cops appears to be good or listen to someone's anecdote about his uncle Charlie, an allegedly good cop.

We need only consider the following:

(1) A cop's job is to enforce the laws, all of them;
(2) Many of the laws are manifestly unjust, and some are even cruel and wicked;
(3) Therefore every cop has to agree to act as an enforcer for laws that are manifestly unjust or even cruel and wicked.

There are no good cops.”
	— Robert Higgs (1944–)
%
“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
% amplifier
Obedience is the great multiplier of evil.
% John Holt, Freedom and Beyond, paraphrased?
%
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao didn't kill many people. People just doing their jobs to support their families did though.
%
% #happiness #criminals
“Not to be happy is to be a criminal, because the person who is not happy is going to do something wrong sooner or later. He is potentially on the way to crime.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
Violation of consent is the foundation of all crime.
 Corollary 1: No victim? Then no crime.
 Corollary 2: The State is the most pervasive criminal gang known to man.
%
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
	— General Omar N. Bradley
%
% #moral relativism #relativism #objective ethics #ethics
“If all values are relative, then cannibalism is a matter of taste.”
	— Leo Strauss
%
If ethics are pure subjective preference, then rape is just competing preferences.
%
“Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.”
	— James Baldwin (1924–1987), 'A Talk for Teachers' (1963)
%
“The practical reason for freedom is that freedom seems to be the only condition under which any kind of substantial moral fiber can be developed — we have tried law, compulsion and authoritarianism of various kinds, and the result is nothing to be proud of.”
	— Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945), 'On Doing the Right Thing', in The American Mercury (1925)
%
“A man goes to a foreign country and kills somebody who's not aggressing against him; in a Hawaiian shirt he's a criminal, in a green costume he's a hero who gets a parade and a pension. So that, as a culture, we remain in a state of moral insanity. To point out these contradictions to people in society is to be labeled insane. This is how insane society remains, that anybody who points out logical opposites in the most essential human topic of ethics, is considered to be insane.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Virtue is never left to stand alone. He who has it will have neighbors.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
% #conscience
Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you from enjoying it.
%
A costume doesn't change morality. If you kick in doors to threaten peaceful strangers in their own home, or if you kidnap peaceful individuals to lock them up in your basement, then *you* are the criminal, even if you do this wearing a blue clown suit.
%
% #majority
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
	— Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), 'A Confession' (1879)
%
“Ethics is not a mystic fantasy—nor a social convention—nor a dispensable, subjective luxury, to be switched or discarded in any emergency. Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival—not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'The Objectivist Ethics' (1961)
%
% #natural law
“It might once have been thought sufficient to say that some moral knowledge is universal. As it turns out, however, the determination to play tricks on moral knowledge is universal too. A law is written on the heart of man, but it is everywhere entangled with the evasions and subterfuges of men.”
	— J. Budziszewski (1952–), 'The Line Through the Heart' (2009)
%
“There is only one power that determines the course of history, just as it determines the course of every individual life: the power of man’s rational faculty—the power of ideas. If you know a man’s convictions, you can predict his actions. If you understand the dominant philosophy of a society, you can predict its course. But convictions and philosophy are matters open to man’s choice.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal' (1966)
%
“Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
% #fair share
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–)
%
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
	— Thomas Sowell (1930–), 'Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays'
%
“Let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?” [or tell me how much of what *you* earn belongs to *me*!]
	— Walter E. Williams (1936–)
%
“Someone who claims a right to a good that he has not produced (or acquired by some other voluntary means) is doing one of two things: either he is claiming a right to have nature supply him with goods without effort, which is absurd; or he is claiming a right to take goods from others against their will, which is unjust.”
	— David Kelley
% "A Life of One's Own" pages 76-77.
% http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2010/11/samizdata_quote_745.html
%
“The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'The Road to Serfdom' (1944)
% full version: “The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves 'the good of the whole,' because the 'good of the whole' is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done. […] collectivist ethics […] knows no other limit than that set by expediency—the suitability of the particular act for the end in view.”
%
% #neutrality
“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
	— Dante Alighieri (c. 1265–1321)
%
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
	— Desmond Tutu (1931–)
%
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
	— Elie Wiesel (1928–), holocaust survivor
%
“Never, never be afraid to do what is right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
% #courage #virtue
“Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without it we can't practice any other virtue with consistency.”
	— Maya Angelou (1928–2014)
%
“There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.”
	— Albert Camus (1913–1960)
% IOW: Those who lack the courage to do what is right will always find a philosophy to justify what is wrong.
%
%“Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
%	— Maya Angelou (1928–2014)
%
% #act
“Do more than belong: participate.
Do more than care: help.
Do more than believe: practice.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
Do more than forgive: forget.
Do more than dream: work.”
	— William Arthur Ward (1921–1994)
%
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
	— James Neil Hollingworth, aka Ambrose Redmoon (1933–1996)
%
Courage is the lack of meta-fear: the ability to ignore the fear of being afraid.
%
The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.
% source: http://www.rawilson.com/illuminatus.html
%
I don't know if might makes right, but lack of might sure makes lack of right.
%
%
%
% #road to hell #intentions #root of all evil #ignorance
%
%
%
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.”
	— Steven Weinberg (1933–), 'A Designer Universe?'
% http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm
%
“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good.”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008)
%
You either support the right of individuals to give what they want to whom they want for their own reasons, or you don't. There may be many positions, but they are all either on one side of that proposition or the other. It's a line, a basic human right, a non-aggressive principle, worth defending with our lives.
%	— Cash Snowden, https://www.facebook.com/cashify/posts/610784242321380
%
Gangs trying to rule over, violate, rob and enslave will always exist. But they will not always continue to be called 'our government', 'the republic', 'the state', 'the community' or 'OUR democracy'.
% Cash Snowden https://www.facebook.com/cashify/posts/726527760747027
%
% #intraspecies predators
“[Utilitarianism and ethics] With the non-empathetic among us, it's win-lose. You can't have a common good among predators and preys. And the most efficient predators are the human predators, and the most profitable prey is the human prey. So, the reality is that you simply cannot get universals out of anything that is. You can only get universals out of reason.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), FDR 2375, 1:26:06, http://youtu.be/a1RQrEHXhK8?t=7m50s
%
% #intraspecies predators
“The greatest resource for any human being to control is not natural resources, or tools, or animals or land — but other human beings.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), http://youtu.be/Xbp6umQT58A
% http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2014/07/10/human-farm-the-story-of-your-enslavement/
%
“The sad thing is that evil can be imposed, but virtue can only be encouraged.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), FDR 1521 (15:40, paraphrased)
%
“Fascists divide in two categories: the fascists and the anti-fascists”
	— Ennio Flaiano
% In Italia i fascisti si dividono in due categorie: i fascisti e gli antifascisti.
%
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.”
	— Christopher Dawson, 'The Judgment of Nations' (1942)
%
“Understand and abide by the following self-evident principle, and you will be an anarchist: If there is something that would be wrong for you to do yourself, then you shouldn't ask anyone else to do it either.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
% https://www.facebook.com/larken.rose.7/posts/1672503916362743?notif_t=notify_me
%
%
%
% #money
%
%
%
“A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. […] We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“Money doesn't change men, it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, the money brings that out, that's all.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“You will never know if someone is an asshole until he becomes rich.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
%“Money is like an arm or leg — use it or lose it.”
%	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice - there is no other - and your time is running out.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
% http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/money.html
%
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
“Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Atlas Shrugged' (1957)
%
%“Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws.”
%	— Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty
% fake http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/permit_me_to_issue_and_control_the_money_of_a_nation_and_i_care_not_who_mak/
%
“Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”
	— Anna Lappe
%
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
% #inflation
“One of the evils of paper money is that it turns the whole country into stock jobbers. The precariousness of its value and the uncertainty of its fate continually operate, night and day, to produce this destructive effect. Having no real value in itself it depends for support upon accident, caprice, and party; and as it is the interest of some to depreciate and of others to raise its value, there is a continual invention going on that destroys the morals of the country.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809), 'Complete Writings of Thomas Paine' (1786)
%
“Because gold is honest money, it is disliked by dishonest men.”
	— Ron Paul, 'The Case for Gold' (1982)
%
“Another strange notion pervading whole peoples is that the State has money of its own; and nowhere is this absurdity more firmly fixed than in America. The State has no money. It produces nothing. Its existence is purely parasitic, maintained by taxation; that is to say, by forced levies on the production of others. “Government money,” of which one hears so much nowadays, does not exist; there is no such thing.”
	— Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945), 'Memoirs of a Superfluous Man' (1943)
%
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Human Action' (1949)
%
“No man is exclusively motivated by the desire to become as rich as possible; many are not at all influenced by this mean craving. It is vain to refer to such an illusory homo economicus in dealing with life and history. […] The ideal type is not an embodiment of one side or aspect of man's various aims and desires. It is always the representation of complex phenomena of reality, either of men, of institutions, or of ideologies.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Human Action' (1949)
%
%
%
% #ip #patents
%
%
%
Copying is not theft, and coercively excluding other humans from using knowledge is evil.
% https://www.facebook.com/onemore.freeman/posts/10203144788403133
%
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
% Commisioner Pravin Lal, Alpha Centauri (game from Firaxis)
% https://www.facebook.com/Aaron.Feisty.Spence/posts/10203053550050173
%
“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 Heinlein (1907–1988), 'If This Goes On' (1940)
%
“Property in ideas is an insoluble contradiction. [He who complains of "theft" of his idea] complains that something has been stolen which he still possesses, and he wants back something which, if given to him a thousand times, would add nothing to his possession.”
	— Hermann Rentzsch, 'Geistiges Eigenthum, Handworterbuch der Volkswirtschaft possession' (Leipzig, 1866), pp. 333-34.
%
“In the electronics industry, patents are of no value whatsoever in spurring research and development.”
	— vice-president of Intel Corporation, Business Week, 11 May 1981.
%
“The advantages [of not having patents] in the machine industry generally, lie less in the free use of developments themselves, than in the free scope for engineers in general.  With great complicated machinery, individual, perhaps not very essential, parts can be patented, thus preventing a complete and perhaps much more valuable construction and forcing better engineers to an exacting study of all such little patents.”
	— Bureau der Kaufmannischen Gesellschaft Zurich, 1886.
%
“Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account, the sooner people will start making money again.”
	— Bruce Schneier
%
“The growth of knowledge is of such special importance because, while the material resources will always remain scarce and will have to be reserved for limited purposes, the uses of new knowledge (where we do not make them artificially scarce by patents of monopoly) are unrestricted. Knowledge, once achieved, becomes gratuitously available for the benefit of all. It is through this free gift of the knowledge acquired by the experiments of some members of society that general progress is made possible, that the achievements of those who have gone before facilitate the advance of those who follow.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'The Constitution of Liberty' (1960)
%
%
%
% #nonquotes #proverbs
%
%
%
Spontaneous order, also known as freedom, is the highest level of the political pyramid of needs. These needs are: peace, security, law, and freedom.
%
Government — If you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions.
%
Better, faster, cheaper — pick any two.
%
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     S/he has prejudices.
%
Every technique is first developed, then used, important, obsolete, normalized, and finally understood.
%
<hcf> information we gather and create overflows our means of managing it
<hcf> our ppl r only happenstancely synergistic
%
Nihil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu
(Nothing in intellect unless first in the senses)
%
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.
%
You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life."
%
Luck occurs when preparedness meets opportunity.
%
Not all cops are bad. But those that are, give the other 1% a bad reputation.
%
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
%
Respect cannot be demanded, only commanded.
%
I'm not anti system, the system is anti me.
%
How beautiful a society might be if all people were allowed, from the earliest ages of curiosity, to pursue productive mastery of that which they hold most fascinating?
%
People with ethics have little use of the state. And the state has little use of people with ethics.
%
We are all work-in-progress.
%
%
%
% #computers #compsci #cs #it #programming
%
%
% http://www.junauza.com/2010/12/top-50-programming-quotes-of-all-time.html
% http://progfree.org/Patents/quotes.html
%
“The very possibility of conflict over a resource renders it scarce, giving rise to the need for ethical rules to govern its use. Thus, the fundamental social and ethical function of property rights is to prevent interpersonal conflict over scarce resources.”
	— Stephan Kinsella (1965–), 'Against Intellectual Property' (2008)
%
“Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim.”
	— Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002)
%
“The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation.”
	— Lew Mammel, Jr.
%
“A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.”
	— Alan Perlis
%
“Lisp is a programmable programming language.”
	— John Foderaro
%
“[Design] Patterns mean "I have run out of language."”
	— Rich Hickey
%
%“The main difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman is that the used car salesman can probably drive and knows when he's lying.”
%	— Peter da Silva
%
“Some people, when confronted with a Unix problem, think "I know, I'll use sed." Now they have two problems.”
	— Jamie Zawinski
%
“If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution.”
	— Robert Sewell
%
“I made up the term 'object-oriented', and I can tell you I didn't have C++ in mind.”
	— Alan Kay, OOPSLA '97
%
“When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.”
	— Steve Hoflich on comp.lang.c++
%
“The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony number 9.”
	— Erwin Dieterich
%
“Being really good at C++ is like being really good at using rocks to sharpen sticks.”
	— Thant Tessman
%
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
%
“Lisp is a programmable programming language.”
	— John Foderaro
%
“If you give someone Fortran, he has Fortran.
 If you give someone Lisp, he has any language he pleases.”
	— Guy L. Steele Jr.
%
“I'd rather write programs that write programs, than write programs.”
	— Dick Sites
%
“Lisp programmer available: Will write code that writes code that writes code for food.”
	— Rob Warnock
%
“The hacker: someone who figured things out and made something cool happen.”
	— Alan Schmitt
%
“Speed has always been important otherwise one wouldn't need the computer.”
	— Seymour Cray
%
“You think you know when you can learn; are more sure when you can write; even more when you can teach… but certain when you can program.”
	— Alan Perlis
%
“A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.”
	— Alan Perlis
%
“Backwards compatible — If it's not backwards it's not compatible.”
	— Greg Newton <gregnewton@netscape.net>
%
“A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.”
	— Joseph Campbell
%
“If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.”
	— Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002)
%
“If you could make a programming language where programmers could write in english, you'd find that most people can't write english.”
	— "Masoud Pirnazar" on comp.lang.lisp 2001-10-12
%
“From a programmer's point of view, the user is a peripheral that types when you issue a read request.”
	— P. Williams
%
“Computer programming is omnipotence without omniscience.”
	— Prospero, as cited by Eliezer Yudkowsky
% http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/quotes-25.html
%
“Lisp […] made me aware that software could be close to executable mathematics.”
	— L. Peter Deutsch
%
“Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.”
	— Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002)
%
“Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.”
	— Abelson & Sussman, SICP, preface to the first edition
%
“Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”
	— Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002)
%
“The highest goal of computer science is to automate that which can be automated.”
	— Derek L. VerLee
%
“I object to doing things that computers can do.”
	— Olin Shivers
%
“[A] Computer [programming] language is inherently a pun — [it] needs to be interpreted by both men & machines.”
	— Henry Baker
%
“Perhaps those of us who care about quality programs have not spoken up often enough — `for bad programs to triumph requires only that good programmers remain silent.' I call this passivity the `Silence of the Lambdas.'”
	— Henry Baker
%
%
%
%
%
%
%
% #uncategorized
%
%
%
%
%
%
% Eric Rush - Without borders, how will I know who to hate?
% https://www.facebook.com/kellylsdiamond/posts/10151919921578230
%
% #TANSTAAFL
% https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10153635392245469?notif_t=notify_me
The only free cheese is that in the mouse trap.
	— Russian proverb
%
% #beauty is in the eye of the #beholder, state or mind
“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“He truly sees who sees that vision and creation are one.”
	— as appeared in Bhagavad Gita
%
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
	— Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015)
%
“When you look upon another human being and feel great love toward them, or when you contemplate beauty in nature and something within you responds deeply to it, close your eyes for a moment and feel the essence of that love or that beauty within you, inseparable from who you are, your true nature. The outer form is a temporary reflection of what you are within, in your essence. That is why love and beauty can never leave you, although all outer forms will.”
	— Eckhart Tolle (1948–)
%
“To belittle, you have to be little.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“Libertarian Open Borders Policy: All honest people are free to come and live here. All criminals are free to come and die here.”
	— François-René Rideau
% https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10153657621245469
%
“If instead of teaching other people what government should be and should do, you'd teach yourself what government actually is and does do, you'd be a libertarian.”
	— François-René Rideau
% https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10155063763335469
%
“The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.”
	— Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797)
%
“The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.”
	— Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), a former slave.
%
“It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to 'rid the world of evil-doers'.”
	— Arundhati Roy (1961–)
%
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”
	— Rajneesh, Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher
%
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
	— Eleanor Roosevelt
“But you're only fooling yourself if you can't recognize your superiors.”
	— François-René Rideau (Faré)
%
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
	— Eric Hoffer
%
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
 You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
	— Naguib Mahfouz
%
“Think you can, or think you can't — either way, you'll be right.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
Brain, n.:
	The apparatus with which we think that we think.
		— Ambrose Bierce: 'The Devil's Dictionary'
%
“I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work.”
	— Gallagher
%
To keep plunder at bay it must be made more painful than labor.
%
A tautology is a thing which is tautological.
%
“You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty.”
	— Henrik Ibsen
%
“The Army is a place where you get up early in the morning to be yelled at by people with short haircuts and tiny brains.”
	— Dave Barry
%
You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You're not paid enough to worry.
%
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
	— Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
%
If you need violence to enforce your ideas, then your ideas are worthless.
%
“Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.”
	— Howard Aiken
%
“When you are young you are afraid people will steal your ideas; when you are old you are afraid they won't.”
	— David D. Friedman (1945–)
%
“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.”
	— David D. Friedman (1945–), 'The Machinery of Freedom' (1973)
%
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
	— Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
%
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
	— Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
%
“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life — so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.”
	— Matt Cartmill
%
“Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.”
	— James J. Ling
%
Paralysis through analysis.
%
“The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.”
	— Ursula K. LeGuin: 'The Dispossessed'
There are 40 kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense.
	— African proverb
%
“The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work.”
	— Herbert V. Prochnow
%
“Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the thing that he can least afford to waste or lose.”
	— Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931)
%
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
	— Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931)
%
“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“The superior man understands what is right;
 the inferior man understands what will sell.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“In his dealings with the world, the gentleman is not invariably for or against anything. He is on the side of what is moral.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“He who flatters a man is his enemy. He who tells him of his faults is his maker.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.
%
“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
ego = 1 / knowledge
%
“To see what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“In a just society, it is shameful to be poor. In a corrupt society, it is shameful to be rich.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII, paraphrased
% this is the original:
%“When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.”
%	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII (邦有道貧且賤焉恥也，邦無道富且貴焉恥也。)
%
“To be wealthy and honored in an unjust society is a disgrace.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects'
%
“The noble-minded are calm and steady. Little people are forever fussing and fretting.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'Analects of Confucius'
%
“A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present?”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Life and Wisdom of Confucius'
%
“To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
%“Humankind differs from the animals only by a little and most people throw that away.”
%	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
% TODO get a source
%
“Tzu Chang asked Confucius about jen. Confucius said, "If you can practice these five things with all the people, you can be called jen." Tzu Chang asked what they were.
Confucius said: "Courtesy, generosity, honesty, persistence, and kindness.
If you are courteous, you will not be disrespected.
if you are generous, you will gain everything.
If you are honest, people will rely on you.
If you are persistent you will get results.
If you are kind, you can employ people.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
	— Confucius (551–479 BC)
%
drug, n:
	A substance that, when injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper.
%
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice… moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
% https://niskanencenter.org/blog/on-the-saying-that-extremism-in-defense-of-liberty-is-no-vice/
%
Aphorism, n.:
	A concise, clever statement.
Afterism, n.:
	A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late.
		— James Alexander Thom
%
“The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
%“Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.”
%	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
% TODO find source
%
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956), 'The Smart Set' (December 1919)
%
“The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; for another thing they die earlier.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity…”
	— H. L. Mencken, 1930
%
“Of all the things I've lost in life, I miss my mind the most…”
	— Ozzy Ozbourne
%
“That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.”
	— George Santayana
%
I walked a mile with Pleasure, / She chattered all the way;
But left me none the wiser, / For all she had to say. //
I walked a mile with Sorrow / And ne'er a word said she;
But, oh, the things I learned from her / When Sorrow walked with me!
	— Robert Browning Hamilton
%
“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.”
	— Frank LLoyd Wright
%
“What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.”
	— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
%
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
	— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
%
“You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“The question "Who ought to be boss?" is like as "Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?" Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947)
%
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”
	— Henry Ford (1863–1947), who had two flops before founding Ford Motor Co.
%
“If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
	— Toni Morrison [same with software — François-René Rideau (Faré)]
%
“Someone once called me "just a dreamer". That offended me, the "just" part. Being a dreamer is hard work. It really gets hard when you start believing in your dreams.”
	— Doug Engelbart
%
“The secret of survival is: Always expect the unexpected.”
	— Dr. Who
%
“How can we claim that someone else will keep our secret if we ourselves cannot (in telling them).”
	— La Rochefoucauld
%
% #meta #superstition
“Superstition brings bad luck.”
	— Saul Gorn
% http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1522&context=cis_reports
% https://www.facebook.com/fahree/posts/10152703455020469?notif_t=notify_me
%
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
%
“The War on Terrorism is missing the point: what we need is a War on War!”
	— Kennita Watson
%
“You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue — agree with him.”
	— Edgar Waston Howe
%
“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
	— Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
%
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
	— F. Dostoyevski (1821–1881)
%
Committee, n.:
	A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
		— Fred Allen
%
% #reading
“I find television very educating: Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
	— Groucho Marx
%
“Many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of Nazism, and sincerely hate all its manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realisation would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'The Road to Serfdom' (1944)
%
The worst thing about totalitarian regimes is not that they make people poor, miserable and unfree — it's that they corrupt people's souls, and turning everyone into a double-thinking, double-speaking liar for the sake of survival.
%
If you compromise your principles to gain numbers, then you've lost already.
%
% #society
Society was guilty. It was thus arrested, tried, convicted, executed. Only remained individuals, free and responsible: You. No more excuse.
%
“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”
	— David Graeber (1961–2020)
%
“Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you live in. It's not the times that will bring us down, any more than it's society. When you put the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for the solution. […] There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays, it's not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don't have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.”
	— Tom Robbins (1936–), Woodpecker in 'Still Life With Woodpecker' (1980)
%
If Government is the solution to any alleged "failure" of free society, then what is the solution to blatant failures of Government?
%
In the age of the Internet ignorance is a choice.
%
“In the end, everything will be okay. If it's not okay, it's not yet the end.”
	— Fernando Sabino
%
% #attention #observation
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
%
“Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity.”
	— Walter Block (1941–)
%
“The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the voluntary sector; and the 'public sector' is, in fact, the coercive sector.”
	— Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993)
%
“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”
	— Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
%
Worry is a misuse of imagination.
%
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
%
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
	— Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
%
“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.”
	— Elie Wiesel (1928–), holocaust survivor
%
“Consider this: the first hole ever dug on the moon by a man-made machine is now done. It is the most expensive hole in the history of the human race. Now, what does that mean? How do we know whether this is one of man's noblest achievements or if it is a game being played by a small group of lunatics for their own amusement — at our expense?”
	— Neil Postman (1931–2003): 'Teaching as a Subversive Activity'
% see http://fare.livejournal.com/26432.html
%
“There is no such thing as the government. There are only a group of people who refer to themselves as "the government" and act in a governmental manner.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995)
%
There is no such thing as 'The Government', but there are men in costumes that will come to see you if you don't pretend there is.
%
“In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.”
	— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–)
%
“What divides libertarians from everybody else is not a belief about rights or what rights people have, because the judgments libertarians make about the state are the same as the judgments almost everyone makes about private agents. So it's not that we believe in rights that other people don't believe in, or that other people believe in rights that we don't believe in. It's that other people think the state is exempt from the moral principles that apply to non-government agents.”
	— Michael Huemer
%
“Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult.”
	— Andre Marrou (1938–)
%
“Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it”
	— Kurt Hofmann
%
“The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”
	— James Madison (1751–1836)
%
“If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.”
	— Orson Scott Card (1951–)
%
When a men rapes a woman, the state avenges her. When a woman rapes a men, the state is the tool that she uses to do it.
%
% #history
%
“History is the lie commonly agreed upon.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778)
%
“There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including, it is true, some of the attemps to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as its heroes.”
	— Karl Popper (1902–1994), 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' (1945)
%
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
	— Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), 'Case of Voluntary Ignorance' (1959)
%
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”
	— Milan Kundera (1929–), 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' (1979)
%
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing things historians usually record; while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks of the river.”
	— Will Durant (1885–1981)
%
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778), 'The Age of Louis XIV'
%
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”
	— Voltaire (1694–1778)
%
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”
	— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1901)
%
You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them.
%
%[…] the people who call themselves The Government […]
%
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
	— Lao Tzu (sixth century BC), 'Tao Te Ching'
%
% #character
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
	— Malcolm S. Forbes
% variations: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/09/inferiors/
%
“What is to give light must endure burning.”
	— Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997)
%
“Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“Once you stop learning, you start dying.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“The pioneers of a warless world are the young men and women who refuse military service.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
The essence of a civilized society: evidence trumps reason trumps emotions.
%
% #NAP
“The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society.”
	— Mark Skousen (1947–)
%
% #epistemology
That, which is not falsifiable, can never be true.
%	— Stefan Molyneux, #falsifiability
% https://www.facebook.com/stefan.molyneux/posts/10152140202576679
% https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Falsifiability.html
%
“We must be careful not to believe things simply because we want them to be true. No one can fool you as easily as you can fool yourself.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
“It's better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.”
	— Josh Billings
%
“It's not ignorance that does so much damage; it's knowing so darned much that ain't so.”
	— Josh Billings
%
The "Law" is not a rational document. It's merely a collection of words written down by different people at different times, and interpreted by men in black robes who pretend it isn't full of contradictions and immorality.
% https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=655551121129617&set=a.289725451045521.78694.241506042534129&type=1&theater
%
“Anytime you accept a rule or a conduct of behavior that is not universal, you are being bullied, manipulated, and controlled.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Thus we can see that – at least at the level of economics – democracy is a sort of slow-motion suicide, in which you are told that it is the highest civic virtue to approve of those who want to rob you.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“When *choice* enters into our lives, where formerly we felt there were only absolutes, we feel anxiety, because deep down we know that that choice always existed, but we have been told that it was *wrong* to think about that choice.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), 'On Truth'
%
Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.
%
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”
	— Frederick Buechner
%
“If the government doesn't need a government to keep them in line, why do we?”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“Religion completely externalizes the moral – and immoral – decisions of mankind. "Virtue" is obedience to the whimsical dictates of a self-contradictory deity, while "vice" is surrender to the whimsical temptations of a self-contradictory devil.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), 'Real-Time Relationships - The Logic of Love'
%
“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Beyond Good and Evil', Aphorism 146 (1886)
%
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
	— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
% #pronoun magic
%
“Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we".”
	— attributed to Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
“State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (1885), http://j.mp/1k6pbwS
%
“If you've ever lived in a foreign country, you know exactly what life is like without the ["right" to vote]: pretty much what life is like with it. Except for the Zen of abandoning the constant, unrequited longing for control that is the cruel karma of the democratic citizen, and the breath of honest fresh air in exchanging a first-person government for a third-person one, not "we" but "they."”
	— Mencius Moldbug
%
It should be a grammatical if not legal offense to ascribe thoughts, opinions and decisions to "we" without a signed power of attorney.
%
“In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
%
“Women can form a friendship with a man very well; but to preserve it — to that end a slight physical antipathy must probably help.”
	— Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), HAH
%
“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
	— Malachy McCourt
%
“Private property is redundant. "Public property" is an oxymoron. All legit property is private. If property isn't private it's stolen.”
	— Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912), 'The Production of Security' (1849)
% no source
%
“No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”
	— Gideon John Tucker (1826–1899)
% not Mark Twain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_J._Tucker
%
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that ain’t so.”
	— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
“The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”
	— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
“There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he's absolutely free to choose.”
	— William M. Bulger
%
Don't expect coherence from a loosely-defined group of people. Even individuals have trouble with coherence. Argue issues! Change incentives!
%
“Why is there only one Monopolies Commission?”
	— Lord Sutch
%
“There is no reason ever to have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought.”
	— David Allen (1945–), 'Getting Things Done'
%
“Those who are afraid to take the next step will have wasted their entire previous journey.”
	— Baron von Richthofen
%
“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.”
	— Charlie Brown
%
A pretty face is not a passport; it's a visa and it runs out fast.
%
“Just as men both want many women and want to truly love a woman, women want both a man who is appealing to many women and to be truly special to a man.”
	— Obsidian Files
%
“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
	— Stephen Pinker
%
“Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.”
	— Wernher Von Braun, when asked by the US government why tossing scientists at the 'space race' was not helping.
%
“Critical thinking shouldn't be about questioning other people's ideas as much as it should be about questioning your own; I think at its core it should be about us embracing the idea that we could be wrong. I suppose this could also be a short summary of what I think philosophy is about: It's about being wrong, about knowing that we're wrong, and about trying to find a system of thought that'll enable us to get things right.”
	— Gina Brunner
%
“Engineering is not the art of constructing. It is rather the art of not constructing: or, it is the art of doing well with one dollar what any bungler can do with two.”
	— Arthur Mellen Wellington
%
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.
%
“If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will.”
	— Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
% cited by Dale Carnegie in "How to Win Friends and Influence People", p. 118
%
“If the human mind were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it.”
	— Pat Bahn
%
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
	— Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
%
By the time a man realises that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong.
%
“The only valid political system is one that can handle an imbecile in power without suffering from it.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
“If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium', or 'normal distribution', do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
“Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–), 'Fooled by Randomness' (2004)
%
“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–), 'Fooled by Randomness' (2004)
%
“[…] there is what I call  the "roundtrip fallacy": it is a mistake to use, as journalists and some economists do, statistics without logic but the reverse does not hold: It is not a mistake to use logic without statistics.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–), 'Fooled by Randomness' (2004)
% http://www.mises.org/story/2056
%
% #employment #salary #job #hamster wheel
“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”
	— Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)
%
“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
	— Nassim Taleb (1960–)
%
“What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and sh*ts quantity.”
	— William S. Burroughs (1914–1997)
%
“Let them march all they want, so long as they continue to pay their taxes.”
	— Alexander Haig (1981-1989), US Secretary of State
          Attributed to him while commenting on demonstrations against nuclear weapons
%
“Somewhere in every process of taxation, a pistol is involved.”
	— Jim Rogers
%
Boxer’s law of economics: “The economy interprets taxation and regulation as damage and routes around it.”
	— Jessica Boxer, http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1752
%
“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
%
“Theoretical compromise or gradualism will only lead to the perpetuation of the falsehood, evils, and lies of statism, and only theoretical purism, radicalism, and intransigence can and will lead first to gradual practical reform and improvement and possibly final victory.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
%
% #question #understand #solution
“If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it; because the answer is in the problem, it is not separate from the problem.”
	— Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), 'Life Ahead'
%
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“Disregard for the preferences and interests of individuals alive today in order to pursue some distant social goal that their rulers have claimed is their duty to promote has been a common cause of misery for people throughout the ages.”
	— Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997)
%
“The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“The proletarians of the 1800s in Europe and of the 1950s in Asia and Africa, are not former wealthy people bankrupted by capitalism. We could say that they are former deceased people who cease to die. Their existence is due to the suppression of famines by the progress of production techniques.”
	— Jean Fourastié, Open Letter to Four Billion People
%
"How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked.
"Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly."
	– Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), 'The Sun Also Rises' (1926)
%
“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
	– Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)
%
“Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will never believe you anyway.”
	– Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)
%
“If men are good, you don't need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don't dare have one.”
	— Robert LeFevre (1911–1986)
%
“Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.”
	— Robert LeFevre (1911–1986)
%
“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”
	— Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
%
“We will never get the money out of politics until we get the politics out of money.”
	— Alex Tabarrok
%
“The measure of the state's success is that the word 'anarchy' frightens people, while the word 'state' does not.” (http://youtu.be/pdDCaGQAU9U)
	— Joseph Sobran (1946–2010)
%
“The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods; it remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.”
	— Mark Twain (1835–1910)
%
“Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.”
	— Douglas Casey
% https://conventionofstates.com/news/new-study-shows-large-percentage-of-foreign-aid-goes-to-wealthy-elite
%
“I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general: one would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and ministers.”
	— Chesterfield
%
“Few facts are more revealing than the direction people travel when they vote with their feet.”
	— Don Boudreaux, http://bit.ly/afZgx2
%
Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
%
“Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people.”
	— David Viaene
%
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it destroys itself from within.”
	— Will Durant
%
“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” [it has answered dearly…]
	— Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), First Inaugural Address
%
“An anarchist is an uncomprimising liberal.”
	— Emile Faguet
%
“I've never been able to figure out for _whom_ we're saving the irreplaceable resources. If _we_ aren't allowed to use them, then the next generation shouldn't use them either, nor the one after that.”
	— Harry Browne (1933–2006), 'How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World'
%
“I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
	— Will Rogers (1879–1935), Saturday Review, Aug. 25, 1962
%
%“I write in a deliberately provocative and outrageous manner because I like to startle people. I hope to wake up people. I have no desire to simply soothe or please. I would rather risk making people angry than putting them to sleep. And I try to write in a style that's entertaining as well as provocative.”
%	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
“Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.”
	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
“The tragedy of modern war is not so much that young men die but that they die fighting each other, instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”
	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
	— Edward Abbey (1927–1989)
%
“No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988)
%
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' (1966)
%
“Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful — just stupid.)”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“The greatest productive force is human selfishness.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
	— Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism' (1895)
%
% #unlearn #aging
“To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“In a family argument, if it turns out you are right — apologize at once.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbowroom is pleasanter — and much safer.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“You live and learn. Or you don't live long.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty". Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute — get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Never appeal to a man's "better nature". He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth — but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“If you don't like yourself, you *can't* like other people.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“Progress doesn't come from early risers — progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”
	— Robert Heinlein (1907–1988), 'Time Enough For Love' (1973)
%
“The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.”
	— John Locke (1632–1704), 'A Treatise Concerning Civil Government' (1781)
%
When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will. (http://youtu.be/VyyCTKosPOA)
%	— Otto T. Mallery (1881-1956), 'Economic Union and Durable Peace' (1943), http://youtu.be/VyyCTKosPOA
% not Frédéric Bastiat:
%   http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1678
%   https://cafehayek.com/2007/05/who_said_it.html
%
“Competition is merely the absence of oppression.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'Economic harmonies'
%
“When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence”
	— Gary Lloyd
%
“I've never seen a border in my life. I've just seen people in costumes criminally obstructing others.”
	— Jeff Berwick
%
“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850)
% no source? https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Bastiat
%
“The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'Economic Sophisms' (1845)
%
“What a lot of trouble to prove in political economy that two and two make four; and if you succeed in doing so, people cry, 'It is so clear that it is boring.' Then they vote as if you had never proved anything at all.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'What Is Seen and What is Not Seen' (1850)
%
%“L’État, c’est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.”
%“Der STAAT ist die große Fiktion, nach der sich JEDERMANN bemüht, auf Kosten JEDERMANNS zu leben.”
%“The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else.”
“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
%“Az állam a nagy fikció, amelyen keresztül mindenki mindenki más terhére törekszik élni.”
	— Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850), 'The State' (1848)
%
“I will probably be asked why I don't cite the author's name? Because my philosophy teacher taught me that it sometimes jeopardizes the effects of the quote.”
	— Author's name withheld.
%
Pyramid schemes are illegal. Social Security is a pyramid scheme.
%	— Alan Grimes?
%
“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
	— P.J. O'Rourke (1947–)
% http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6857
%
“There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.”
	— P.J. O'Rourke (1947–)
%
“Economic knowledge necessarily leads to liberalism.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973)
%
"Market Failure" has nothing to do with either Market or Failure, only with whiny bullies demanding that others bend to their preferences, based on the absurd belief that violence is a magic wand that yields coordination for free.
%
“Whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Nation, State, and Economy'
%
“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.”
	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
%
“The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.”
	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
%
“Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people, who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Socialism' (1922)
%
“In fact, however, the supporters of the welfare state are utterly anti-social and intolerant zealots. For their ideology tacitly implies that the government will exactly execute what they themselves deem right and beneficial. […] Every advocate of the welfare state and of planning is a potential dictator.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Planned Chaos' (1947)
%
“If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), 'Planning for Freedom' (1952)
%
“Economics is not about goods and services; it is about human choice and action.”
	— Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973)
%
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
	— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
% or maybe Ronald Reagan?
%
“Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.”
	— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
%
“A true conservative is someone who explains to you that government doesn't work, gets elected and then proves it!”
	— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
%
“Most economic fallacies derive… from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”
	— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
%
“Voting for liberty is like raping for virginity.”
	— Jim Davidson
%
“If there is one commonality among all tyrants, it is the collectivist philosophy. The idea that it is justifiable and even noble to sacrifice the rights of the individual in the name of serving some greater good.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
% unsourced^
%
“It is important to break the perverse concept of collectivism from the pure and magnificent human reality known as social cooperation.”
	— Bruce Koerber
%
% #free trade #trade #cooperation
"Through trade, we discover the humanity in each other. Once our financial arrangement is complete, our connection will fade, but a mutual respect and some deeper sense of understanding and empathy will remain."
	— FEE.org
%
“If you love freedom, as I do, there is no country on earth for you. Every flag, every nation, stands for your enslavement, in one way or another.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“Most of my work can be summed up as me telling people, 'you should be free' and people saying, 'no I shouldn't'.”
	— Larken Rose (1968–)
%
“Just as pornography can stimulate the human sex drive without providing any actual sex, democracy can stimulate the human power drive without providing any actual power.”
	— Mencius Moldbug
%
“'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.”
	— F. A. Hayek (1899–1992)
%
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
	— F. A. Hayek (1899–1992)
%
“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.”
	— F. A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'Individualism and Economic Order' (1948)
%
“The [classical] liberal, of course, does not deny that there are some superior people — he is not an egalitarian — but he denies that anyone has authority to decide who these superior people are.”
	— F. A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'Why I Am Not a Conservative'
%
“Individualism is thus an attitude of humility before this social process and of tolerance to other opinions, and is the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is at the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.”
	— F.A. Hayek (1899–1992), 'The Road to Serfdom' (1944)
%
“Big Business has to *sell* the Vietnam War to you. Big Government can just draft your ass and ship you overseas under threat of imprisonment and/or death. Now, which one is better again?”
	— rho@netdoor.com
%
“If normative judgments cannot be rational, then science is actually useless.”
	— François Guillaumat
%
% this is not really true…
%“The fundamental class division in any society is not between rich and poor, or between farmers and city dwellers, but between tax payers and tax consumers.”
%	— David Boaz, CATO Institute
% He cites Tom Paine as his source: http://www.cato.org/dailys/01-01-99.html
%
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809), 'The Age of Reason' (1793)
%
“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
% #principle
“Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
	— Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
%
“A society that robs an individual of the product of his efforts, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment — a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man's nature is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
% #minorities
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
%
“An individualist is a man who says: "I will not run anyone’s life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone—nor sacrifice anyone to myself."”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982), 'Textbook of Americanism'
%
“Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive.”
	— Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
% see also http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2005/08/macaulay_on_cau.html
%
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
	— Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), 'Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative' (1891)
%
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”
	— P.J. O'Rourke (1947–)
%
“The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority.”
	— Benjamin Tucker (1854–1939)
%
“Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government are interchangeable terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader.”
	— Benjamin Tucker (1854–1939)
%
“If I go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbour, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich. Authority may (and may not) make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally poor in all that makes life best worth living.”
	— Benjamin Tucker (1854–1939)
% http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/09/samizdata_quote_544.html
%
“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
	— Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), in 1986, while reigning as president; a hypocrat, unless he meant it as prescriptive.
% https://mises.org/daily/5009/The-Reagan-Fraud-and-After
%
“Taxation with representation ain't so hot either.”
	– Gerald Barzan
%
“An anarchist is a man who is careful to always use pedestrian crossings, because he utterly detests talking with policemen.”
	— Georges Brassens
%
“Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking.”
	— William E. Simon
%
“Exploitation is a word often used but rarely defined. In its most literal meaning — I 'exploit' you if I in some way benefit from your existence — it is the reason human society exists. We all benefit from one another's existence. We all exploit each other.”
	— David D. Friedman (1945–), 'The Machinery of Freedom' (1973)
%
“Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason.”
	— Charles Curtis
%
“If it's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well”
	— Donald Hebb
%
“Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them.”
	— Alan Perlis
%
“We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.”
	— David Clark for the IETF
%
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
“Everything is interesting if you go into it *deeply* enough.”
	— Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
%
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
	— Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–1944)
%
% fr: Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large.
“When you want to build a ship, do not begin by gathering wood, cutting boards, and distributing work, but awaken within the heart of man the desire for the vast and endless sea.”
	— Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–1944), paraphrased
%
“Keep things as simple as you can, but no simpler.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955), variations: things/explanation; Einstein/Occam
%
% a mathematical formalization of Occam's razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff_induction
% an older Occam's razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_parsimoniae#Formulations_before_Ockham
% “We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus [all things being equal] of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses—in short from fewer premisses; for… given that all these are equally well known, where they are fewer knowledge will be more speedily acquired, and that is a desideratum. The argument implied in our contention that demonstration from fewer assumptions is superior may be set out in universal form…”
%	— Aristotle (BC 384–322), 'Metaphysics'
% the principle of parsimony / economy (lex parsimoniae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_parsimoniae)
%
%
“Complexity is the hallmark of stupidity.”
	— Erik Naggum
%
“There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
	— Morpheus in 'The Matrix'
%
“That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.”
	— George Boole (see: Linguistic relativity, aka Sapir–Whorf hypothesis)
%
“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”
	— Chinese Proverb
%
“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.”
	— Swedish Proverb
%
“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized:
  In the first, it is ridiculed.
  In the second, it is opposed.
  In the third, it is regarded as self-evident.”
	— Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
%
“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”
	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
%
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”
	— G.K. Chesterton
%
“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”
	— G.K. Chesterton
%
“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
	— G.K. Chesterton
%
“Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn't violate too many of Newton's Laws!”
	— Alan Kay, 1971
%
“An extreme optimist is a man who believes that humanity will probably survive even if it doesn't take his advice.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“An excessive knowledge of Marxism is a sign of a misspent youth.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Committing genocide on behalf of an institution generates greater loyalty to it than merely getting people fired from their jobs on its behalf.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Here's a way to tell scientific intelligence from legal intelligence. Both may start from the idea that something cannot be done and think up arguments to explain why. However, it is possible that the scientist may discover a flaw in the argument that leads him to change his mind and discover a way to do it. He will be pleased. The legal thinker will merely try to patch the flaw in the argument, because once he has chosen a side, all his intelligence is devoted to finding arguments for that side.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“If it doesn't work right, we can always try something else.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“He who says he will die for a cause will probably lie for it and may kill for it.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“It is deplorable that many people think that the best way to improve the world is to forbid something. However, they're morally more advanced than the people who think the best way to improve the world is to kill somebody.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“If you want to do good, work on the technology, not on getting power.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Never abandon a theory that explains something until you have a theory that explains more.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Malthus was right. It's hard to see how the solar system could support much more than 10^28 people or the universe more than 10^50.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Language is froth on the surface of thought.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Once a person has killed other people on behalf of an ideology, he becomes rather devoted to it.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Personal dishonesty is not needed to produce a dishonest business plan or research proposal. Wishful thinking suffices.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Soccer riots kill at most tens. Intellectuals' ideological riots sometimes kill millions.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“There is only one thing more harmful to society than an elected official forgetting the promises he made in order to get elected; that's when he doesn't forget them.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“You say the only alternative to nuclear war is world government. There is only one possibility worse than nuclear war for the survival of modern civilization, and that is world government. Civilization might recover from the damage of a nuclear war, but judging by past static empires in Egypt and China, it might never recover from world government, there being no chance of external intervention. As it is, present governments are only prevented from becoming dominated by crazy ideas that will suppress all opposition by the existence of other governments. The only way a people can be sure that their government is substandard is that it does worse than those of other countries.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“You say you couldn't live if you thought the world had no purpose. You're saying that you can't form purposes of your own — that you need someone to tell you what to do. The average child has more gumption than that.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
%
“Your denial of the importance of objectivity amounts to announcing your intention to lie to us. No-one should believe anything you say.”
	— John McCarthy (1927–2011), father of Lisp
% http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/rationality-q-1.html
%
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.”
	— Mark Twain (1835-1910)
%The reason truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to make sense.
%
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
	— Mark Twain (1835-1910)
%
“The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.”
	— Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
%
“Give up all hope for a better yesterday, even a better just now. Never give up hope for a better tomorrow.”
	— Patri Friedman
%
“The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.”
	— Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002)
…or in a less sophisticated form: "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
%
Cannot ever have anything resembling a free market when money is interest-bearing debt forced into circulation at gunpoint.
%
“If you can't argue the other side about as well as its supporters, you ought not to have too much confidence that your own views are right.”
	— David D. Friedman (1945–)
%
“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”
	— Alejandro Jodorowsky
%
% which one? “The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
	— Plato (c. 427–347 BC)
%
“Once the fabric of a just society is undone, it takes generations to weave it back together.”
	— Deepak Chopra
%
“The collective dream is the hypnosis of social conditioning. Only sages, psychotics & geniuses manage to break free.”
	— Deepak Chopra
%
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950)
%
“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956), 'The Coolidge Buncombe' (1924)
%
“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a "dismal science". But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) (or read https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson-2)
% https://fee.org/freeman/3-kinds-of-economic-ignorance/
%
Economic illiteracy often leads one to take for wealth creation or cost reduction what is only a forced displacement of activity, with no primary gain, and a lot of secondary costs and negative side-effects.
%
“Intentions have no effect on economic outcome.”
	— Walter E. Williams (1936–)
%
“No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family does.”
	— Ron Paul
%
“A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.”
	— Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
%
“It is better to suffer evil than to do evil.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
%
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
	— Socrates (c. 470–399 BC, tried and executed)
%
Government means never having to say you're sorry…
%
“A government is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and, implied in this, a compulsory territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, a government is the ultimate arbiter, for the inhabitants of a given territory, regarding what is just and what is not, and it can determine unilaterally, i.e., without requiring the consent of those seeking justice or arbitration, the price that justice-seekers must pay to the government for providing this service.”
	— Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949–)
%
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”
	— Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
%
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
	— Frank Herbert (1920–1986), 'Dune', Litany against fear
%
“To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body; the mind also must be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.”
	— Manly Palmer Hall (1901–1990)
%
“Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.”
	— Walter E. Williams (1936–)
%
“The ruling classes use broken and smashed up childhoods as weaponized instruments of domination all around the world. And this is why the government has no incentive to end child abuse, because the government needs abuse victims as enforcers.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), http://youtu.be/kRTv_dyPPIY?t=30m35s
%
“What will a free society [without Government] do about criminals? Not give them access to a god damned army, for starters.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“No matter who you vote for, the government stays in power.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“When you look at a map of the world, you are not looking at countries, but farms. You are allowed certain liberties - limited property ownership, movement rights, freedom of association and occupation - not because your government approves of these rights in principle - since it constantly violates them - but rather because "free range livestock" is so much cheaper to own and so more productive. It is important to understand the reality of ideologies. State capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, democracy - these are all livestock management approaches.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), http://youtu.be/P772Eb63qIY
%
“You cannot get more eggs by threatening a hen – but you can get a man to give you his eggs by threatening him. Human farming has been the most profitable — and destructive — occupation throughout history, and it is now reaching its destructive climax. Human society cannot be rationally understood until it is seen for what it is: a series of farms where human farmers own human livestock.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–), http://youtu.be/Xbp6umQT58A
%
“Democracy: It's not freedom, it's just smarter human farming.”
	— Stefan Molyneux (1966–)
%
“The machinery of politics reveals the ugly truth of most people. Society in general is not nearly as civilized, not nearly as virtuous, as we had hoped. For all our chromed plastic and modern electronics, we're still a pretty shitty species when we feel empowered by the anonymizing proxy violence of the state.”
	— Vangelis Dempsey
%
%“Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at.”
%	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), 'Capitalism versus Statism' (1972)
%
“It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.”
	— Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995)
%
“Being against government help is not the same as being against any kind of help. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Is the misunderstanding deliberate and malicious or does it just reflect a lack of imagination?”
	— Russ Roberts, host of http://econtalk.org
%
“It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others.”
	— Sydney J. Harris
%
Ineptocracy, n.:
	A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
%
“Courage is grace under pressure.”
	— Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
%
The non-aggression principle (NAP) is an ethical stance which asserts that aggression is inherently illegitimate. Aggression is defined as the initiation of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others. (Taxation, the spanking of children and/or threatening them with the Hell or abandonment (i.e. death) are not exceptions.)
%
In a moral judgment the most relevant quality of a person is his capability to reason. Rules, badges, uniforms (costumes), titles, etc… are all inconsequential.
%
“Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.”
	— Morticia Addams, fictional character in "The Addams Family"
%
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
	— Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
%
%Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
%	— misattributed to Ben Franklin, 1759
%
%“Patriotism is proud of a country’s virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country’s virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, “the greatest”, but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.”
%	— Sydney J. Harris
%
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
	— probably Mark Twain (1835-1910)
%
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
	— George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
%
%“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable!”
%	— Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
% ^ unsourced
%
Demand Truly Free Health Care: where doctors need neither pay, food, sleep nor training, and hospitals grow on trees!
%
“Forcing someone to labor to provide you with health care is no less objectionable than is forcing them to harvest your cotton.”
	— Parrish Miller
% https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156814798064589&id=693409588
%
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?”
	— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), 'The Gulag Archipelago' (1973)
%
“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”
	— Sun Tzu (c. 6th century BC), 'The Art of War'
%
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
	— Sun Tzu (c. 6th century BC), 'The Art of War'
%
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
	— Sun Tzu (c. 6th century BC), 'The Art of War'
%
Six-word horror story: Solipsism is true. It isn't you.
%
We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.
%	no source — John Lennon (1940–1980), murdered by a stranger.
%
Introducing the biggest folly of humanity, the God complex: no matter how complicated the problem, you have an absolutely overwhelming belief that you are infallibly right in your solution.
	(In details at: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_harford.html)
%
“It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions. Many times, for instance, I’ve heard people say, 'A free market in education is a bad idea because some child somewhere might fall through the cracks,' even though in today's government school, millions of children are falling through the cracks every day.”
	— Lawrence W. Reed (1953–)
%
“A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.”
	— Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968), Speech in the United States Senate (9 May 1966)
%
Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.
% TODO find source. from Molière? or this? "La vie est une tragédie pour ceux qui ressentent et une comédie pour ceux qui pensent." - Jean de la Bruyère
% https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&pli=1#inbox/147a335ee50f3c57
%
“Ignorance might be bliss for the ignorant, but for the rest of us it's a fucking pain in the ass.”
	— Ricky Gervais
%
“[Just] like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.”
	— L. Neil Smith (1946–), 'The Atlanta Declaration' http://lneilsmith.org/atlanta.html
%
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
	— H.L. Mencken (1880–1956)
%
“We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world.”
	— Evey Hammond in the movie 'V for Vendetta'
%
“Superstition of all shapes and sizes should be kept as far away from the state as possible because the state is power, and if superstitions become joined with power they can do immense harm. They are doing immense harm even without the state.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“It is not Buddha who created Buddhism.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Either know, or know that you don’t know.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
%
%
%
“A man of truth never asks you to believe. He asks you to experiment, to experience. […]

He inspires you to walk on the path but he never says that before you have experienced, your faith, your belief is needed. […]

If you believe in something then there is no need to explore […] all enquiry is pointless. Having faith and enquiring simply means your faith is not real, you are still trying to find out whether it is true or not. Your faith is not faith if you enquire.

And without enquiry, how are you going to manage to have faith? I say to you, "There are seven gods; believe it." But you will say, "How to believe it? There is no support for believing it – and why seven? Why not six, why not eight?" No, the people who require you to believe also require you not to doubt, not to question, not to ask why.

[…] If you are a man you should have some courage to doubt, to question, to enquire. Yes, you can take the belief as a hypothesis, and you can say, "Now we will enquire whether it is true or not. If it is true we will be always grateful to you. If it is not true then we will inform your that you had better change your mind."

All those religions, without exception, ask you for faith.

I am speaking against all kinds of beliefs because I want you to know the reality. I want you to experience the truth – and the only way to do that is for all your beliefs to be demolished completely, eradicated from your being totally, uprooted, root and all, so that you are free to enquire, so that you are free to move in any direction, any dimension that you choose.

All religions are giving you blindfolds.

[…]

And I don’t start anything on belief, I start with doubt. I start by being skeptical because that is the only right way to enquire. Only then one day can you come to know something; otherwise your whole life you will be a believer with nothing solid as your experience.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #now #tomorrow
“But the society, culture, civilization, religions – they have all conditioned the mind of human beings to live for ideals, goals, to go on sacrificing the real for some imaginary paradise, future life, eternity, God. All these names mean only one thing: Don’t live now.

All the cultures and all the civilizations and all the religions are against the ”now” – and now is the only reality.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, it is always now. Except ”now” there is nothing existential.

The word ”goal” is very dangerous. It is suicidal to have a goal. Without your awareness you are being sacrificed for something which is never going to happen.

Life in itself is enough – it needs no goals.

That’s why there is this urge, this desire, this tremendous lust to live and to live forever. It has nothing to do with you; it is your very life. This is not being taught to you; you are born with this desire. This desire is your gift from existence itself.

If you listen to this desire and if you stop listening to all kinds of religious nonsense, you will be a new man, really alive. Yes, life has a tremendous power, and it wants to expand. It wants to live as intensely and totally as possible.

And this is not going to happen some other day. If it is going to happen it can happen only now: Now or never.

But it is not happening now because your minds are tethered to some future goal: you have to achieve heaven and you have to achieve the realization of God. All bogus words, meaningless jargon, but because they have been repeated so often for thousand of years it sounds as if those words have some content in them.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“I am not claiming anything; hence you cannot organize a religion around me. I am making every effort to create barriers, hindrances, for those who will try to make a religion organized around my teachings. In the first place it is impossible to find out what my teachings are. Anybody is going to go nuts finding out what my teachings are, because I have not been teaching at all. These are not gospels that I am giving to you, they are simply gossips. Now, have you ever heard of any religion being created around gossips? I am not giving you a message from God. I simply enjoy talking, I love it!”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“You are religious or you are not. It is not that for one hour per week you become religious, that is impossible. […] religion is a new way of the heart beating in tune with existence. When your heart starts beating in harmony with existence, you feel an at-one-ment with the trees, with the rocks, with people, with animals. You start feeling a relatedness. You are part of an organic mystery.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“I was continually insisting to my teachers, to my professors, to my vice-chancellors, "I don’t want a bookish answer. That I can find in the library, I don’t need you for that. I want your personal experience. Have you experienced anything that you can go on teaching?"

And I have seen their embarrassed faces, their empty eyes, their empty souls. Yes, they are full of rubbish, all kinds of doctrines, creeds, cults. If you want them to give you a sermon then they can give you a sermon, a beautiful sermon, on the ultimate goal of life.

And the truth is, life is only immediate; there is nothing ultimate. But the vested interests cannot live without the ultimate. They have to convince you to sacrifice your life for some imaginary idea.

The idea can be democracy, the idea can be communism, the idea can be fascism, the idea can be Christianity, the idea can be Hinduism; it does not matter. But something far away… All along the way you have to go on sacrificing that which is real for something unreal; and in the end comes death, no goal.

Because of this situation – that you have been told to sacrifice your life – there is a hunger for eternal life. Otherwise each single moment is so blissful – who cares to live forever? For what?

If this moment is fulfilled, if you are contented, you don’t need even a next moment. If it comes, good; if it does not come, even better – because you have lived, you have tasted the nectar of life. Now what more can the next moment give to you?”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“The spiritual man is bound to be a free man. He lives in freedom, he dies in freedom. You cannot take his freedom away, there is no way. You can kill his body, but you cannot even touch his soul.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #consciousness
“That is the exceptional quality of every religious person, the uniqueness; hence they are incomparable. Nobody is a criterion for anybody else. But it has been continually argued for centuries: what is the criterion to decide who is enlightened and who is not? It has not been decided yet, and will never be decided ever, for the simple reason that every enlightened person is nothing but freedom, spontaneity. He is beyond any predictions. […] The reason is because the inner world follows no laws. The outer world follows laws. Matter is slavery. Consciousness is absolute freedom.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #consciousness #know thyself
“Why should we raise the consciousness of the world? Are you nuts or something? Can’t you let the world alone? You just raise your consciousness.
[…] To raise one’s own consciousness is arduous. To raise the consciousness of the world is just fun, no problem to you […] by trying to raise it suddenly you become a great sage, you become a great religious leader, you become world famous. […] Consciousness is not there in any collective sense, there is no world consciousness. There are only trees, no forest. Forest is only a word – convenient, useful, but non-existential. If you go in search of a forest you will never find it. Standing in the middle of it still you will not find it. What you will find always is an individual tree, and of course an individual tree is not the forest. This consciousness of the world, consciousness of humanity, is just a word. Don’t fall into linguistic games.
[…]
People are not interested in consciousness. Consciousness is painful, because you will have to drop so much which you have carried your whole life thinking it very valuable. You will have to uncover your wounds which you have covered and completely forgotten. You will have to revive all worries and anguishes that somehow you have repressed. You will have to face again your original face which you have lost far back. You have become somebody else. You have been somebody else so long, that now to face your original face is going to shatter you completely.

To be conscious [is] not a game. To be conscious is to go through a deep surgery. And the problem is, you are the surgeon, and you are the patient.
[…]
Consciousness is self-surgery.

And don’t ask me how can we raise…? Nobody can do it for somebody else; you can only do it for yourself. This is the fundamental of spiritual surgery: you can only be successful on yourself. Howsoever painful it is… but there is no other way. Yes, it pays tremendously if you can pass through the test.
[…]
Reach to the dawn of your being. Blossom. Let your blissfulness explode. Perhaps somebody’s sleeping soul may be triggered. Somebody’s sleeping consciousness may have a shock and wake up. But these are only ”perhaps.” One cannot be certain in these matters. The matters are so subtle you cannot be certain.

Hope for the best. And wait for the worst. And time certainly is short.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“So I cannot say that vegetarianism is something universally right. I am absolutely a non-fanatic person. About nothing am I fanatic. I try to see all the aspects of a thing, and I am utterly liberal, human. I don’t try to make any principle more valuable than humanity itself. Nothing is above man. Nothing should be above man.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #master #teacher
“The Master is exactly that – a catalytic agent. He does nothing, but millions of things happen around him. They happen because of him but are not caused by him – and the difference is great. […] He has not done it, but it has happened to you; and it has happened to you because of him.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #love
“Can a man who loves even think of possessing? Is it not very clear that to possess someone is to reduce him from a being to a thing? There is nothing worse that you can do […]: reducing a being to a thing. And that’s what possession is. Only things can be possessed; beings cannot be possessed.

You can have a communion with a being. You can share your love, your poetry, your beauty, your body, your mind. You can share but you cannot do business. You cannot bargain. You cannot possess a man or a woman.

But everybody is trying to do that all over the earth. The result is this madhouse we call the planet earth. You try to possess – it is naturally impossible, it cannot happen in the very nature of things. Then there is misery. The more you try to possess a person, the more that person tries to become independent of you, because every person has a birthright to be free, to be himself or herself.

You are trespassing on the privacy of the person, which is the only sacred place in the whole world. Neither Israel is sacred, nor is Kashi sacred, nor is Mecca sacred. The only sacred space in the true sense is the privacy of a person – his or her independence, the beinghood.

If you love a person you will never trespass.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #true self #love
“You just have to be a little alert about your inner composition and you will be surprised to know many things. You will come to know that all your joys are within you, all your miseries are within you. Nobody else creates them, you simply find an excuse in somebody. Everything is within you, and except you nobody else is responsible.

Then what is the question of dropping misery? If you want to continue, continue. If you don’t want to continue, who is telling you to continue? The very understanding that "it is my own work" becomes the dropping.

And the second realization that comes is: "What I used to call ‘I’ was nothing but this combination." When this whole combination subsides, falls into a deep harmony, the discordant notes become a symphony. You suddenly become aware of a new I, which was standing far back because the noise of your mind was so much, and you were so much engaged in all that. Your real self was simply waiting for you to look inwards. But you were focused outwards, and you were so much struggling with things… You cannot be victorious – and you cannot be defeated either; you will always remain in a limbo, in a confusion.

Once all that confusion is gone, suddenly from the background a new concept of your being emerges.

It is more like am-ness than I; it is more existential. It is not egoistic, it is simply a feeling of am-ness.

And then you know that it was simply foolish to ask, "How can I drop misery?" because I is the misery, I is the jealousy, I is the hell. And you don’t know your real I. The real I you can know only when the false is gone. The moment the false disappears the real appears. The death of the false is the birth of the real.

And that quality which I am calling am-ness is the very center of life, the very center of bliss. You will remain the same person in a way, but in another way you will be absolutely discontinuous with the old; you will be absolutely new.

You will love, but now your love will not be the same as it was before. It will not have hate as its opposite side.

Your love will be now so great that it can absorb hate, it can transform its poison into nectar. You will love but you will not possess. You will love to give, not to get. You will love because you are so full of love you have to share it; otherwise it becomes a burden.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“This is true, that the politician cannot become religious – for the simple reason that politics, all politics, politics as such, is power politics. It is will-to-power. One wants to dominate, one wants to possess, one wants to be the decisive factor in people’s lives. These are the qualities of the ego. Obviously this type of person cannot be religious because religion is basically the experience of egolessness.

In religion there is no place for will-to-power. In fact, in religion there is no place even for will. Will-to-power is far away; even will-to-be is not there. One is in the hands of existence, in a deep let-go. This let-go is what I call religiousness. That’s why I said that religion and politics are opposite dimensions.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“The politician cannot be religious because religion means understanding, awareness, silence, harmony, and a deep let-go with existence, a feeling of being at peace with everything as it is: no desire to be anybody else, no desire to be anywhere else, no desire for tomorrow. All is fulfilled in this moment. The politician cannot afford this. And the religious man who is in this situation, in this ultimate state of being, for him politicians are just foolish people, although he may not say so just out of etiquette.

I am not a man of etiquette, I don’t know manners. I simply call a spade a fucking spade, because that’s what it is.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“But all the politicians are doing that, pissing and thinking that they are leaving golden marks. Yes, pissing is a little yellow but I cannot say it is golden, that would be exaggerating. And all that the dog is leaving as his mark, and making as a declaration to existence, is that "This is my territory" – it stinks!

I said to him, "The whole of history stinks, and all your politicians simply stink. You please just stop thundering and stop telling us nonsense. You just start the story of all the idiots of the past. And please forgive us for not being added to that list."”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“What have I been doing for thirty years continuously? – fighting every kind of nonsense. Was there any reward, was I seeking any reward out of all this fight? No, it was not for any reward. It was just the way my aliveness was asserting itself. It was not goal-oriented, there was no motivation; I was
simply being myself.

I enjoyed all that fight. In fact the people who came in conflict with me were very much surprised because it was an agony for them. To me it was an ecstasy. They could not understand how I was enjoying it.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“For thirty years I have been hammering as hard as possible. And a few things I have realized: howsoever thick the conditioning may be that has happened to humanity in the past, it can all be broken. We just need a few authentic religious persons – not priests, not professionals but people who have experienced. They will become burning torches in the darkness of the night.

They will not become politicians, but they can destroy the whole political structure of the world – and that’s what is needed.

They will not be interested in politics – but they will certainly be interested in the humanity that the politicians have been exploiting for centuries.

They will not take power in their hands, they will simply destroy these parasites and let the power be everybody.

In fact, power should be distributed to everybody. It should be decentralized; there is not need for power to be centralized.

Centralized, power is bound to corrupt.

With power decentralized, everybody is powerful in his own way.

What is the need of having politicians?

The animal called politician has to disappear from the earth; this is the hope. And I know that now – and only now – is it possible. Before it was not possible, for two reasons: the authentic religious people were not there; and secondly, the politician had not yet done his worst. Now both things are available. The sincere, authentic religion is being born among you. And the politician has come to his tether’s end. He has done the worst, now he cannot do anything more. What more can he do than to bring about a nuclear war, destroying the whole world?

Before the politician and his nuclear weapons destroy the whole humanity, the few authentic religious people have to bring fire to every heart, a fire in which the whole political game is finished. And with the political game finished, the politician will disappear. This is the only hope.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #collectivism
“Consciousness never exists in collectivities: people, nation, society, culture, civilization. You will not find these things anywhere; they don’t exist.

Whenever and wherever you come across ”people”, you will come across the individual. That is solid reality. And ”people” can’t have any questions. The ”people” don’t have any soul, the ”people” is only a collective name.

It is just like a forest. From far away you can see the forest but as you come closer and closer the forest starts disappearing. When you are exactly in the forest there is no forest, there are only trees.

[…] What to say about the forest? – even two trees are not exactly the same. The forest is only a word. Yes, it denotes a collectivity, but no collectivity has any consciousness of its own.

The society – have you come across society anywhere? Or do you hope some day to say, "Hi, society! How are you?" These words are just hollow, empty. They are only containers without any content in them. But man is so idiotic that he is more interested in containers than in the content.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #truth
“The same happens to truth the moment it enters the world of language.

Language is all human creation: Truth is not. We are a creation of truth.

Language is our creation; hence it cannot express our origin, it is superficial. Language is just a toy in our hands.

[…] truth is pure meaning, pure content without any container. The moment you put a container around it you are doing something […]

The moment you put it into language, the whole freedom, the whole beauty, the whole authenticity is gone.

Truth said is truth dead.

You are asking what is truth. I can show you the way so that you can see what is the truth. You cannot see through my eyes; you cannot get a glimpse of it through my words. If you are really interested in knowing, then I can show you the path which leads to truth. I have been calling that path meditation.

You be silent – because truth is your innermost property, your own treasure: not the kingdom of God somewhere else in the heavens, but the kingdom of God within you just now, throbbing, pulsating – your heartbeat. It is here, but you are not here.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“You have been told to seek and search for something which always takes you away from yourself. That’s why people are not interested in truth – because truth is within you, it is you. You have been programmed so criminally, such a deep harm has been done to you, that your priests, your prophets, your messiahs cannot be forgiven. They have spoiled millions of people’s lives; just for the sheer joy of being a messiah or a prophet, they have crushed you all.

I am teaching you to be selfish.

Let me repeat it, because the word "selfishness" has been condemned so much that there is every possibility you will misunderstand me. But the word is really beautiful. To be selfish simply means to be yourself. […]

You are told to love your neighbor – but you have never loved yourself. And a person who has not loved himself, how can he love the neighbor? From where can he get love? First you have to have it. […] Such insanity is happening in the world: people who know nothing of love are loving each other. […]

To know anything, you have to begin with yourself. […]

I teach you to be selfish. Learn swimming first; then perhaps you can save somebody. There is no need to go in search of somebody to save. […]

I want you just to be simply selfish. And you will be surprised that if you are selfish you discover so many treasures within yourself that soon you start sharing them – because finding a treasure is a lesser joy than sharing it.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #master #truth #enlighten
“My answer is of no help: My answer will be only words to you. You can make holy scriptures of those words, you can worship those words. That’s what humanity has been doing for thousands of years. It is time to stop this garbage. I want you to find your answer, but that is possible only when you start with your question. […]

But remember, it is your quest: It has to be your question. And I do not want to give you any answer. I can only show you the way to find your own answer. Truth liberates, but it has to be your own. Otherwise, if it is somebody else’s, truth binds. Jesus Christ’s truth, Mohammed’s truth, Buddha’s truth, have all become prisons. I don’t want my truth to become a prison for anybody. I want my truth to be an inspiration.

I want my truth to trigger something in you which is yours. My truth simply gives you an assurance that a human being, just like you, can attain to truth.

That will give you immense respect towards yourself. You will not feel unworthy sinners, that somebody has to come to save you – some Christ, some Buddha has to come, and then you will be saved. You don’t have to wait for anybody to save you. You are born saved, just a little insight… If my presence can do that, then my work is finished.

I don’t want to become a prison around you. I want to become a freedom around you, an open sky around you, not a golden cage – so that you can open your wings and feel the joy of flying higher and higher towards the stars.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
% #fanaticism
“What is fanaticism? Have you looked into it? The fanatic person is saying he knows perfectly well that what he believes is not true. That’s why he shouts loudly that it is true, and the only truth. He is not shouting at you, he is shouting against his own still, small voice. He wants to drown that voice in his shouting. But he knows perfectly well it is not true.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“So those outside the commune who are intelligent are sooner or later going to be part of you. And it is good that idiots remain against us because that is a great safety: they will never enter. To me it is of great significance that idiots don’t get interested in me. They get angry at me, that’s very good. And I try my best to keep them angry, hating me, against me, because I don’t want them to be here. I don’t want this place to turn into a commune of idiots.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Sex has to be part of your spiritual life, it has to be something sacred. Sex has to be something not obscene, not pornographic, not condemned, not repressed, but immensely respected, because we are born out of it. It is our very life force. And to condemn life force is to condemn everything.”
	— Osho (1931–1990)
% source?
%
“That’s why sex-repressive societies have developed in so many directions. Yes, they have become very cultured, polished, civilized, educated, scientific, technological. But at what cost?

They have lost all joy. They have lost all peace. They have lost all silence. They have lost all love.

You can project your love towards an imaginary object but it is not going to give you fulfillment. You can go on writing poetry about Krishna or Christ, but that poetry is not going to give you the experience of love. You will remain starved. So the society has become really rich in every possible way – but the individual has died. And what is the point of the society becoming cultured, civilized, educated, technological? For whom? The individual is dead. This society is nothing but corpses walking all around – of course very culturally: corpses, but very polished.

[…]

So one thing to be understood: these sex-repressive societies became very cultured, very civilized, very rich, very scientific, but at what cost? They died, they are no longer alive.

My problem is, I want you to be alive and yet as rich in every dimension as possible. I am not ready to choose between these two, either/or. I would not like you to be aboriginals. I would not like you to become very civilized, cultured, running after money and power and prestige. I would not like you to become politicians, priests. But I would like you to have a fuller life. And anything that develops out of a fuller life, to me that is true culture.

Aboriginals live a life that is full, but not overflowing. The civilized societies of the world have all kinds of developments – but the man for whom they have been developing these things has disappeared long ago. They go on making skyscrapers; they have completely forgotten for whom they are making these skyscrapers. That man is dead – you should make, rather, small graves, not skyscrapers. Nobody needs graves that tall; just six feet long and two feet deep will do.

So on one hand are the aboriginals – alive but not overflowingly alive. They don’t know that life energy can shrink, can expand. You can use it as it is available from nature – and you can be contented – but you will remain poor in many ways. You will not know flights of music. You will not know flights of painting and sculpture; you will not know flights of meditation. You will live almost like animals – contented.

[…]

I would like you to rise higher than the animals; and the only way to rise higher than the animals is to find ways to expand your energy. And that’s what I call religion: The science of expanding energy, so that you have so much energy that you can be a Zorba and yet so much is left that you can be a Buddha too, together, simultaneously.

Zorba is alive but knows nothing of higher flights. He is happy crawling on the earth, while he is capable of opening his wings – but he is not aware of that.

[…] Zorba pulls him up and he says, ”Start dancing!” The boss says, "I don’t know dancing." Zorba says, "Nobody needs to know dancing. Dancing is not something that you have to learn. Just start jumping, it will come. And I will give you the music – you simply start." […] and for the first time he realizes he can also live, he can also dance; his legs are not meant just to walk. He has wings, Zorba teaches him something of the earth.

I feel sorry for Zorba, sorry because he died before I could meet him; otherwise I would have taught him that there is a higher dance too. And I am certain – I don’t know why but I am absolutely certain he would have understood. Because he has known the lower steps, he could have understood the possibility of higher steps.

I would have made him a Buddha. That is what I am doing here for you.

You come here either an aboriginal, or – which is far worse – a civilized man. Once in a while, yes, a Zorba also comes. This Patipada sitting here – she is a Zorba. Once in a while… There are many Zorbas here who are learning to rise above, who are moving higher, touching the fringes of buddhahood. My methods of meditation are the ways that will make you expand your energy. Energy is like seeds…

[…]

One seed can make a whole earth green. One small sparkle or energy in you can fill the whole earth with dance, song, music. Just a little sparkle is enough. If you know how to expand it, it can become a wildfire. It may be just a little flame within you. Meditation is nothing but an effort to expand your inner flame so that you can become afire, aflame, aglow, overflowing.

Then there will be a science, but totally different than the science that has been produced by repressed sexuality. There will be a qualitative change. This science is destructive because it has come out of perversion; it is perverted sexual energy which has become nuclear energy. When it comes out of meditation, overflowing love, it will be creative science – a totally different science which we are not even aware of.

[…]

My people have to keep the innocence of the Zorbas, of the children, of the aboriginals. They have to be as innocent as Adam was when he was turned out of the garden of Eden. And yet they have to learn methods of expanding the seed of consciousness in them to such a luxurious growth, that as far as you can see, you can see only yourself flowering. You can feel your fragrance twenty-four hours a day; and not only can you feel it, you cannot help it: you will have to share it. Whether you want to or not, that does not matter.

When a roseflower opens, the fragrance starts spreading. It does not ask the permission of the roseflower, there is no need. The very opening of the roseflower is the permission for the fragrance to spread to all the directions, to all the winds.

The moment your consciousness flowers in meditation there is a tremendous explosion. Yes, you will have music, but it will have a spiritual quality to it. You will have dance, but your dance will not be sexual. The repressed society has many kinds of dances but they are all sexual, perverted sex.

You will have poetry, but your poetry will not be just unsatisfied sexual lust. It will be a fulfilled love. Your poetry will become like the mantras of the UPANISHADS. Each word coming out of your fulfillment will catch something of what I call godliness. You will have a science which will be creative, helpful to life.

You will have everything – but with a different quality.

Up to now those two societies have existed. We are not going to be either of them. We are the third alternative – for the first time proposed in the world.

Nobody has ever dared to think of man as Zorba the Buddha. Neither Zorba had any idea of Buddha nor Buddha had any idea of Zorba. Both are half.

I want you to be the whole man. To me the whole man is the only holy man there is.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“The society that did not repress sex naturally remained undeveloped for the simple reason that they were contented. There was no energy available to go after money, to go after politics, to go after God. No, they danced, they sang; they had a small but beautiful architecture – huts, but made beautifully. They lived a very clean life; there was no crime because there was no energy for crime.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“Every day the discussion will continue until one is defeated, and you will have to accept that. They are what I call cultured human beings. When one was defeated, he accepted it; there was no need for a judge. That’s what I call culture. There was no need for a judge to decide who has won the debate. The people who were fighting tooth and nail, they themselves
decided who is victorious and who is defeated.

This was honest, sincere. It was not just an effort to defeat the other, it was a search for truth; and if the other has better arguments than you, certainly he deserves to be your master. Then the defeated one will become the follower of the victorious, and all the followers of the defeated one automatically will become followers of the victorious. This way philosophers roamed around the country with thousands of disciples. And wherever they came, they created a climate of great depth, intensity, alertness.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%
“The religious leaders were doing a tremendously beautiful business: no investment, all profit, no income tax. The religious profession is really the only superb business. You don’t have to invest any money into it, no risk of losing, no risk of the dollar going down. Wherever the dollar goes it doesn’t matter; it is always profit, never loss. In religious business it is always profit.

And you don’t have to manufacture any commodity; you don’t have to create factories and bring labor and labor problems – strikes and lock-outs. No problems at all. You deal in invisible commodities. Nobody can see the god, nobody can see the angels, nobody can see the heaven. It is really a strange business.”
	— Osho (1931–1990), 'From Darkness to Light' (1985)
%