–James Brown
(posted December 25, 2006)
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Religion is an internal spiritual world, and I have my own, with my god, Johann Sebastian Bach. I mean, why not?
–Dr. Jack Kevorkian
(posted December 17, 2006)
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I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself.
–Hank Williams
(posted December 10, 2006)
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This dragonfly came up to me.
He was hovering right in front of my face, and I was really examining him, thinking, How does he see me?
I became enlightened.
–Ziggy Marley
(posted December 3, 2006)
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Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!
–Emily Dickinson
(posted November 26, 2006)
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Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
–Woodrow Wilson
(posted November 19, 2006)
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This whole world would be successful if everybody stopped quitting. But everybody has this thing of, 'Oh, you can't do it.' You know, misery loves company.
–Evander Holyfield
(posted November 12, 2006)
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My spirit is still standing firm and will not fall. And in my body runs the blood of the great. Oh Iraq you are crowned in the heart. And on the tongue you are the poem of the poets. Oh Iraq misfortune has shaken your sword, so stand tall. And gather your strength without bearing a grudge.
–Saddam Hussein
(posted November 5, 2006)
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The yellow thread of exposure seems to be inextricably woven into all fabrics whose strength is secrecy, and experience proves that it is much easier to become fireproof than to become exposure proof.
–Harry Houdini
(posted October 29, 2006)
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O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
–St. Augustine
(posted October 22, 2006)
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I think about my father being called 'boy,' my uncle being called 'boy,' my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called 'boy.' So I questioned myself: 'What does a black man have to do before he's given the respect as a man?' So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody's mouth is 'Mr.' That's a sign of respect that my father didn't get, that my brother didn't get, that my mother didn't get.
–Mr. T
(posted October 15, 2006)
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Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
–Maya Angelou
(posted October 8, 2006)
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Nature abhors a vacuum.
–Francois Rabelais
(posted October 1, 2006)
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Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling...
–William Wordsworth
(posted September 24, 2006)
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Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair.
–C.S. Lewis
(posted September 17, 2006)
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During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes. Nobody, certainly, will deny that the idea of the existence of an omnipotent, just, and omnibeneficent personal God is able to accord man solace, help, and guidance; also, by virtue of its simplicity it is accessible to the most undeveloped mind. But, on the other hand, there are decisive weaknesses attached to this idea in itself, which have been painfully felt since the beginning of history. That is, if this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?
–Albert Einstein
(posted September 10, 2006)
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Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in their religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one.
–Richard Dawkins
(posted September 3, 2006)
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Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown?
Robert G. Ingersoll
(posted August 27, 2006)
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In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable.
–James Van Allen
(posted August 20, 2006)
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Democracy is just a load of bullshit, it is just a cover for the criminal nature of the United States of America. But I'm hoping for the Seven Days In May scenario, where sane people will take over the US, military people. They will imprison the Jews, they will execute several hundred thousand of them, at least. And they will bring home all the troops to the US. And ultimately the white man should leave the US, the black man should go back to Africa, the white back to Europe, and the country should be returned to the American Indians who lived there for, who knows how many, tens of thousands of years. They kept the land crystal clean. It was a beautiful country when the white man came. This is the future I would like to see for the so-called United States.
–Bobby Fischer
(posted August 13, 2006)
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If the use of animal food be, in consequence, subversive to the peace of human society, how unwarrantable is the injustice and the barbarity which is exercised toward these miserable victims. They are called into existence by human artifice that they may drag out a short and miserable existence of slavery and disease, that their bodies may be mutilated, their social feelings outraged. It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery.
–Percy Bysshe Shelley
(posted August 6, 2006)
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Calamity, war, famine, plague, death, adversity, disease, injury do not necessarily produce repentance. We may become better in a calamity but it does not necessarily make us repent. The essence of repentance is that we cannot be repentant until we confront our own self righteousness with God's righteousness.
–Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
(posted July 30, 2006)
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We may not have all the power that we want, but we have all the power that we need. All we have to do is believe it and use it.
–Bruce S. Gordon
(posted July 23, 2006)
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Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.
–Louisa May Alcott
(posted July 16, 2006)
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The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.
–Anne Frank
(posted July 9, 2006)
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Beer commercials are so patriotic: 'Made the American Way.' What does that have to do with America? Is that what America stands for? Feeling sluggish and urinating frequently?
–Evelyn Waugh
(posted July 2, 2006)
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Not even Satan–that old desert snake hiding behind any mirage of water, ready to bite you in the foot as you walk over to have a drink–could have guessed that the desert would even become more of a desert. Unless of course he knows the old ball is drying up on the whole altogether now...
–August Roussel
(posted June 25, 2006)
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Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain
he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
–Robert Louis Stevenson
(posted June 18, 2006)
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Each year the big garden grew smaller and Jane – who grew flowers by choice, not corn or stringbeans – worked at the vegetables more than I did. Each winter I dreamed crops, dreamed marvels of canning . . . and each summer I largely failed. Shamefaced, I planted no garden at all.
–Donald Hall
(posted June 11, 2006)
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A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.
–Marcus Tullius Cicero
(posted June 4, 2006)
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These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.
–Thomas Paine
(posted May 28, 2006)
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There is so much hate among people, so much contempt inside people who'd like you to think they're moral, that they have to hire prizefighters to do their hating for them. And we do. We get into a ring and act out other people's hates.
–Floyd Patterson
(posted May 21, 2006)
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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people – women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government – the ballot.
– Susan B. Anthony
(posted May 14, 2006)
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If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
–Admiral Hyman Rickover
(posted May 7, 2006)
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When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.
–Muhammad Ali
(posted April 30, 2006)
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The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.
–George Washington
(posted April 23, 2006)
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Anyone who clings to the historically untrue–and thoroughly immoral–doctrine that 'violence never solves anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The Ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more disputes in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
–Robert Heinlein
(posted April 16, 2006)
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I am waiting for my case to come up and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder and I am waiting for someone to really discover America and wail and I am waiting for the discovery of a new symbolic western frontier and I am waiting for the American Eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead and I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy and I am waiting for the final withering away of all governments and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder...
–Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(posted April 9, 2006)
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If you set to work in right earnest, then you are sure to be successful. Whoever works at a thing heart and soul, not only achieves success in it, but through his absorption in that he also realizes the supreme Truth– Brahman. Whoever works at a thing with his whole heart, receives help from God.
–Swami Vivekananda
(posted April 2, 2006)
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Resisting overreaching by the federal government is appropriate and, yes, even patriotic. I feel very strongly about this, and have made constitutional issues in general, and First Amendment issues in particular, one of the central focuses of my work in the U.S. Senate. While the days of campus protests are not the same today as when I was in college, many people don't realize that campus protests are going on every day, all over the country, when thinking people, from all different states, generations, and ethnicities are drawn more and more to participate and exercise their First Amendment rights in an exciting venue: the Internet in general and blogs in particular.
– Russ Feingold
(posted March 26, 2006)
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I think most people can do a whole awful lot more if they just try. They just don't have the confidence that they can write a novel or they can write poetry or they can take pictures or paint or whatever, and so they don't do it, and they leave the planet dissatisfied with themselves.
– Gordon Parks
(posted March 19, 2006)
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I took care of him in many ways, but he took care of me in so many ways. I demanded almost as much of our relationship after his disability as before—basically telling him: ‘You need to be my husband. I am there to support you; you need to support me.’ I think it kept our relationship alive. Because if I had given up and said, ‘Oh, you’re sick. I’m not going to ever ask anything of you,’ it would’ve belittled him. He was a willing and loving participant in our relationship, and he was an incredible husband because of that.
–Dana Reeve
(posted March 12, 2006)
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The blues is, ah ... I always just called it just being plain old being lonesome. Now, a lot of people don’t think that that’s a big enough word. But then you can get lonesome for a lot of things. People down where I come from are lonesome for a job, they’re lonesome for some spending money, lonesome for some drinking whiskey, lonesome for good times, pretty gals, wine, women, and song, like they see stuck up in their faces everyday by other people. Thinking that maybe you’re, you know, down and out, and disgusted, and busted, and can’t be trusted, why, gives you a lonesome feeling that somehow the world’s sort of turned against you or there’s something you don’t understand. Being out of work. Being lonesome. Or being in jail. That’s where some of the best blues come from, jail houses, where people are put for different reasons. The blues, awful popular in jails. The blues is a sort of a complaint, or I mean a lament, or I mean, sort of hell raising. You know there’s something in your system that you want to get out. You know there’s something wrong and you look around and see a lot of things that you think is sort of causing things to be hard and you just kind of get to singing the blues.
–Woody Guthrie
(posted March 5, 2006)
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I believe that everything that you do bad comes back to you. So everything that I do that's bad, I'm going to suffer from it. But in my mind, I believe what I'm doing is right. So I feel like I'm going to heaven.
–Tupac Shakur
(posted February 26, 2006)
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The greeks were right! It’s the heart that matters. Don’t try to tell me it’s all in my head, cause thinkin’ too much only gives me a headache (a relatively minor annoyance). And I know where I hurt when promises are broken and dreams die. And that lump in your “throat” when your first born starts walking or talking back. That’s your heart, fool. Ten sizes too big. Bangin’ away at your chest. Hollerin’, “let me out of this box, and I’ll really fuck you up!” And sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t and sometimes your little bitty feeble ass mind’ll fool you again and tell you “I’m runnin’ this motherfucker”. But just let the beast out of the box and hide and watch how fast ol’ bad ass brother brain’ll cut and run. But heart is a dumb animal. Muscle and blood. A pit bull on a mission and he’s hangin’ in like Gunga Din. Good to the last drop of Blood.
–Steve Earle
(posted February 19, 2006)
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You have to understand, the power structure and the errand boys, the guys who carry the bedpans for the power structure, the politicians, councilmen, congressmen, senators, whatever, they only understand one thing: numbers.
–Al Lewis
(posted February 12, 2006)
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I learned that when you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone, because you will have divine companionship and the support of good people. This same faith and cosmic companionship sustained me after my husband was assassinated, and gave me the strength to make my contribution to carrying forward his unfinished work.
–Coretta Scott King
(posted February 5, 2006)
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The heart of the universe is no different from one's own heart. What is the heart of the universe? It contains the poles of existence, the four directions, past and present, all there is–it is universal love. Love does not fight. Love has no enemies. If your mind harbors enmity and hatred, you have lost the universal mind.
–Morihei Ueshiba
(posted January 29, 2006)
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I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active, not more happy, nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
–Edgar Allan Poe
(posted January 22, 2006)
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Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
(posted Jan. 15, 2006)
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We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.
–Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
(posted Jan. 8, 2006)
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Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do with no thought of any reward.
-Og Mandino
(posted January 1, 2006)
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