Ourselves as a social group
Quotes reflecting the Social
Richard Fortey
Conviction provokes perceptual optimism, just as skepticism
taken to extremes will disavow the obvious. (Life, an unauthorized
biography.)
George Santayana
Religions are the great fairy-tales of the conscience. (The
Philosophy of Santayana.)
Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is
interested in itself and not in its subject.
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on
retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to
improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when
experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In
the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily
distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and
persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in
which instinct has learned nothing from experience.
The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those
who have loved it.
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function
is to make the worse appear the better.
Jacques Casanova de Seingalt (Memoirs)
No doubt a time will come when society, more enlightened and
therefore more reasonable. Will acknowledge that noble feelings,
honour and heroism can be found in every condition of life as
easily as in a class the blood of which is not always exempt from
the taint of a misalliance.
A government wishing to establish on a firm basis the prosperity
of trade must give commerce full liberty, only being careful to
prevent the frauds which private interests, often wrongly
understood, might invent at the expense of public and general
interests. (Ch:28)
A poor man will seek in vain for true compassion at the rich
mans doors; what he receives is as a sacrifice to ostentation, and
not true benevolence. (ch 71 memoirs)
Tacitus (regarding Agricola)
Let it be clear to those who insist on admiring disobedience
that even under bad emperors men can be great, and that a decent
regard for authority, if backed by industry and energy, can reach
the peak of distinction.
Aristotle
Justice and equity are therefore the same thing, and both are
good, though equity is the better.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving
them.
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in
any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally
free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to
religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from
a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other
hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has
the gods on his side.All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from
law and justice he is the worst.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore
deprive them of their arms.
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in
any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally
free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and
choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the
good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things
aim.
He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies
skillfully.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being
commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to
be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons
alike share in government to the utmost.
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals
that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates
revolutions.
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same
ideas make their appearance in the world.
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with
whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more
superficial views; for these also contributed something, by
developing before us the powers of thought.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become
just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave
by doing brave acts.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living
from the dead.
The gods too are fond of a joke.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other
persons.
The most perfect political community is one in which the middle
class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things
equal.
The young are permanently in a state resembling
intoxication.
We make war that we may live in peace.
Anon
I am not banging a drum for any religion, it doesnt matter what
religion or no religion you have, but what you know or have been
taught about God and the Universe is now, at this brief time you
have, your only channel to your personal God. You may have rejected
what you have been taught or acquired, but the set of beliefs and
practices you did acquire have become your only way to or language
to communicate to your unique God. This religion may not be perfect
in your eyes, but its all youve got. Dont throw this skill away and
leave yourself destitute and alone in this cold universe. Use what
you have to communicate to your God whatever language you have, be
it Catholic, Hindu, Baptist, Sunni, Episcopalian, Jewish, Lutheran,
Shi-it, whatever. Use it with all its faults, you are probably far
too old to learn a new language.
Western freedom of conscience and speech has been paid for in
the blood of protestant martyrs. Society benefited as much by this
religious revolution as it did by all the other advances in
knowledge up to that point combined; it gave the individual the
right to challenge dogma and examine the world without
prejudice.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Little evil would be done in the
world if evil never could be done in the name of good.
Thomas Jefferson
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 the banks will
deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up
homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."James Payne
A discoverer is persona non grata in academia. Leaving academia
cost me dearly in income and status, but for my own intellectual
development and emotional well-being it was the smartest thing I
ever did.
David Davis (former UK shadow home secretary on repeal of the
Public Order Act) The simple truth is that in a free society, there
is no right not to be offended. For centuries, freedom of speech
has been a vital part of British life, and repealing this law will
reinstate that right."
Robert D. Crassweller, (Quoted in Pern and the Enigmas of
Argentina.)
Dont you see you poor fool, that whoevers got the most dough is
right? That honors sold for cash, and morals for pennies? That no
truth can withstand two bucks?
Abraham Lincoln
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.You cannot
strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.You cannot bring about
prosperity by discouraging thrift.You cannot lift the wage earner
up by pulling the wage payer down.You cannot further the
brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.You cannot build
character and courage by taking away people's initiative and
independence.You cannot help people permanently by doing for them,
what they could and should do for themselves.When the conduct of
men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming
persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim
that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So
with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him
that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that
catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad
to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little
trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed
that cause is really a good one.
Neal Ascherson (Black Sea P 24)
All human populations are in some sense immigrants. All
hostility between different cultures in one place has an aspect of
classic immigrant grudge against the next boatload approaching the
shore. To defend ones home and fields and ancestral graves against
invasion seems a right. But to claim unique possession to compound
the fact of settlement with the aspect of a landscape into an
abstract of eternal and immutable ownership is a joke.
(Black Sea P 64)
In the fifth century world, their society (Greek) was unique in
its exclusive, nervous maleness, but this Greek exception was
transmitted and transformed into the rule for the centralized
imperial societies which were to follow. The identification of
civilization with a totally male-dominated society was adopted by
the Roman Empire, together with its corollary that political
authority for women was a sure mark of barbarism. It was only to be
expected that savages like the Iceni in Britain would choose
Boudicca to lead their rebellion against Roman occupation, or that
the Gaulish women with huge white arms as Ammianus Marcellinus
wrote in the forth century AD would pitch in to save their husbands
in a brawl. From the Roman Empire, the tradition of male authority
flowed into the Roman Catholic Church, uniting with the Judaic
pattern of patriarchy. In the Church of England today the addled
dregs of a classical education lie at the bottom of the deepest
resentments against the admission of women to the priesthood: a
woman at the altar is uncivilized.
Fedorovich Chesnok (Neal Ascherson Black Sea P 91)
Culture is what matters for identity, not ethnicity and not
money either.
Renate Rolle (The world of the Scythians archeologist writing
about Scythian warrior women, of 3000-5000 years ago. sometimes
called Amazons by the Greeks of that time.)
Because their physical training was so varied, the physique of
these fighting women would in no way have resembled that of the
mannish women sometimes produced nowadays by intensive training for
one particular competitive sport ... These man-killers were,
however, for all that no less aware of their femininity and wished
to retain their charms in the land of the dead they all have
jewellery and mirrors, decorated according to the womens individual
social rank; those interested in cosmetics also have make-up of
various colors and also scent bottles. Alfred P Sloan (My years
with General Motors)
I have never believed that a group as such could manage
anything. A group can make policy, but only individuals can
administer policy. (Ch 7)
if we had the means to review and judge the effectiveness of
operations, we could safely leave the prosecution of those
operations to the men in charge of them. The means as it turned out
was a method of financial control which converted the broad
principle of return on investment into one of the important working
instruments for measuring the operations of the divisions. The
basic elements of financial control in General Motors are cost,
price, volume, and rate of return on investment. (Ch 8)
Mr Brown Defined return on investment as a function of the
profit margin and the rate of turnover of invested capital.
(Multiply one by the other equals the per cent return on
investment.) (Ch 8)
Quoting Harley Earl (Key innovator of US car styling): You can
design a car so that every time you get into it, its a relief you
have a little vacation for a while (Ch 15)
Adelle Davis (Lets have healthy children, first published
1959)
Smorgasbord for babies. You women who worry about introducing
solids might feel more relaxed if you knew of an experiment
conducted years ago by Dr Clara M Davis. Some 18 orphans, all six
months old, were allowed to select their own diets, even though
none had tasted any food except a milk formula. They could have
anything they wished from a wide variety of natural foods: sweet
and sour whole milk; buttermilk; hard cooked eggs; various meats,
fish, and fish roe; a variety of cooked cereals; fruit juices, and
raw and cooked vegetables and fruit. No food was salted, but salt
was kept on the trays. Foods were not combined in any way; for
example, grains were served only as a cereal, not as bread.
Each baby was fed separately and was not allowed to watch while
others ate; imitation, therefore, was ruled out. Although a nurse
was with each child during his meal, no attempt was made to offer
him food; if a baby tried to drink milk from a cup which he could
not easily handle, the nurse would help but nothing more. All foods
were weighed before being served, and any food left or dropped on
bibs or floor was collected and weighed.
Many interesting points were brought out by this experiment. One
baby, allergic to egg white, carefully separated yolks from whites,
ate the yolks, and tossed the whites on the flour. A child whose
bone structure was poor drank cod-liver oil of his own free will
113 times, or until his bones were considered normal. All of the
babies went on food binges. They would sometimes drink quarts of
milk one day and eat little else; the next day they would perhaps
scarcely taste milk. One child ate 11 eggs at one meal; another ate
13 bananas at one time. Again and again certain foods would be
avoided for a period and then eaten heartily. The salt would
sometimes not be touched for days and then eaten by the handful,
even though the children grimaced as they ate it.
On one day a child would eat little food of any kind; the next
day he might eat tremendous quantities.
Taken on the basis of day to day, the diets were lopsided
indeed. When the total food consumption over a period of months was
studied, however, it was found that the children ate foods
supplying the nutrients they needed. No child was ill during the
experiment or suffered the slightest deviation from health; none
developed any allergy or infection.
This experiment showed that if foods are unrefined and rich in
nutrients, it is safe to allow a child to eat as much as he desires
without fear of allergies or digestive upsets; and that if a
variety of nutritious foods is offered without one grain of sugar
or other refined food, a child will probably take good care of
himself. It also showed that when children are not urged to eat and
are not scolded, nagged, or prodded during meals, they eat heartily
of their own accord. During the entire experiment not one word
about a food was ever uttered while the child ate, a record few
families could match.
In a similar recent experiment, children from 18 months to three
years old were allowed free choice of wholesome foods. Again it was
shown that if no refined foods were allowed, the childrens own
innate wisdom directed them to select foods which met their
nutritional requirements and built superb health.
Ingo Swann (from Remote ViewingThe Real Story)
We take "circumstances" for granted, so much so that we seldom
look very deeply into them. In general, most people seem to believe
that circumstances are separate from themselves, and that whether
they can control and manage them depends on the individual
involved. However, if one studies the dynamics of circumstances, it
appears that there are many levels or strata of them, and that
there are "local" circumstances and "non-local" ones.
It can also be shown that there are continuums of circumstances
which transcend generations of born bio-bodies and suck millions
into their workings and effects. As but one example -- the
war-making continuum which sucks millions into it, most of which
want to be no part of it and especially not suffer from its
effects.
The implication involved here is quite alien in contemporary
terms, because it is generally believed, sometimes even insisted
upon, that each individual has the power to self-direct their own
lives regardless of surrounding circumstances. Consider, however,
getting sucked into the circumstances of love or hate, of poverty
or stupidity or power games-playing which have overshadowed
humanity since Day One, and for which no permanent cures have ever
been found. On the one hand, many will say that individuals are
responsible for these. But on the other hand, many get sucked into
them, adapting their perceptions and response-thinking to them.
Many are born into circumstances not of their own making -- but
learn to emulate them anyway....When individuals become
incorporated INTO circumstances, then they function as factors
WITHIN the circumstances.And, indeed, the realization of this
appears when anyone says "I got caught up in circumstances" --
which is the same as saying that one got sucked into them.
.This concept is exceedingly difficult for Westerners to
entertain -- because the concept of complete individuality is
paramount in the West and greatly elevated above the concept on
on-going circumstances with life and power of their own.
..What I am of course seeking to establish is that all of us
swim in an ocean of on-going circumstances equally as do the fish
swim in an ocean of water. If the fish was asked to describe its
environment, it would point out everything except the water --
because it is so omnipresent as to be unnoticeable.
.The ocean of water and the ocean of circumstances consist of
currents, eddies, strata, states, conditions and continuums, any of
which one can "get caught up in" or sucked into -- and all of which
remove us from our status as discrete, completely independent
individuals. Indeed, if you look at your own status aside from your
conviction of your individuality, you can probably perceive the
circumstances within which you are incorporated and which largely
are determining what you fondly refer to as your life and your
realities.
..The idea that circumstances, especially on-going ones,
themselves condition and determine is uncomfortable and
characterized by many very subtle aspects which escape the notice
of most. On the other hand, and as a reality check here, it is
vividly recognized that social management or control is achieved
NOT by managing or controlling people -- but the managing (or
attempting to do so) situation-like circumstances within which
social populations ARE incorporated. It is also broadly recognized
that those with power within on-going circumstances generally will
manage and control them for their own benefit FIRST. Thus, although
it is hardly ever stated, or even permitted to be stated, all
others become "pieces" within the circumstances managed or
controlled by others.
Ingo Swann (Remote Viewing Ch 6 Cleve Backster)
A mob was congregated around Backster in Zelda's little kitchen,
and he had been backed into a small space by the refrigerator and a
corner. I wedged myself into the Backster groupies, sipped wine and
listened to the talk. Finally I had the courage to ask if I could
come to his lab to see. He said "Yes."
And with this, the direction of my life changed forevermore --
although I had not a clue at that innocent moment. So, a few days
later I made my way to Backster's lab and lie-detection school just
off Broadway near Times Square. The plant experiment room was a
smallish, gray cubicle furnished with steel desks, galvanometers
and polygraph equipment. And a stately DRACAENA MASSENGEANA, one of
the plants which had officially ushered in the age of sentient
plant reactions. It was about five feet tall and already hooked
into the polygraphs.
But there were only two people present: Backster and I. So I
asked: "Are you going to influence the plant?"
"No," he replied, "you are."
I protested that I had no idea how to influence plants. But he
smiled and said that all I had to do was TO THINK of harming it.
"Just think of lighting a match with the intent of burning one of
its leaves." So, I thought as much while staring at the plant. And
Behold! The polygraph needle went haywire -- so much so that the
tracing went off the paper graph sheet. Backster, typically cool as
a cucumber, now seemed to get a little excited. "Can you do that
again?"
So I tried again, and bingo by Ingo! He asked me to keep on
doing it. But after a few more attempts the polygraph needle
started not to react as much and finally didn't at all.
"What does THAT mean," I asked.
"You tell me."
Then a very eerie thought occurred to me, so astonishing that it
caused goosebumps. "Do you mean," I asked, "that it has LEARNED
that I'm not serious about really burning its leaf? So that it now
knows it need not be alarmed."
Backster smiled. "YOU said it, I didn't. Try another kind of
harmful thought." So I thought of putting acid in the plant's pot.
Bingo! But the same "learning curve" soon repeated itself. Now I
already understood in my own "reality" that plants are sentient and
telepathic, as all plant lovers know who talk to their plants.But
that plants could LEARN to recognize between true and artificial
human intent came as a thunderbolt! Among all this astonishment I
came across the concept of the "learning curve" which ultimately
was to play THE feature role in the development of remote
viewing.Martin Samuel (Times writer on football)
England, and the English, are frequently painted as parochial
and xenophobic, yet it is those beyond these shores, most
specifically Blatter and Platini, the Uefa president, who are most
likely to fall into intellectual shorthand, viewing all outsiders
as one, and as a threat.
Libby Purves (Times writer, on exhumation of the remains of
Cardinal Newman)Oh, enough! Even as a genuinely devout Catholic
schoolchild I hated this stuff, and I hate it more now. The
Church's weird horror of fleshly things (unmarried or contracepted
sex, gay love) is nastily counterpointed by its affection for
cadavers. I know the theology, I accept that there is a distinction
between voodoo paganism and the more complex ideas formulated by St
Jerome and Thomas Aquinas. They say that relics are not worshipped
in themselves but are an aid to veneration of people whose bodies
were the temples and instruments of the Holy Spirit.
Fine. Save a well-thumbed prayerbook if you will, or a lock of
hair. But these creepy exhumations feed the superstitious magical
instincts of religion, not the spiritual and humane ones.
Ambrose Bierce
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
principles.
Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.
Spike Milligan (Puckoon Ch. 5, regarding the ugliness of
Belfast)
safe in its bureaucratic cocoon, we had a new vandalism of
authority, power without conscience or taste
05/18/1872 - 02/02/1970,
1 Quote" \t "_blank" Bertrand Russell
War doesn't determine who's right - only who's left.Socrates
I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young
alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but
and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I
tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue
comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.
This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the
youth, I am a mischievous person.
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until
it is known how he employs it.
The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is
to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we
shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen
themselves by the practice of them.
Minette Marrin (Times 8 June 08)
..the obstinate folly of generations of teachers and theorists
of education. Obsessed with equality and social engineering, they
refused to recognise the simple truth that children and students
vary. Children are born with different abilities, into different
environments, which exaggerate those differences: ignoring those
differences is no way to help them all, nor is clumsy social
engineering.
Imposing one kind of school, one class and one syllabus on
everyone, in an attempt to iron out those differences, has been
tragically wrong. Encouraging everyone to think they can get a
university degree is unforgivably discouraging to the majority of
young people who cant and dont.
The result has been a school system that suits almost nobody and
public exams that mean almost nothing quality has been sacrificed
to the pursuit of equality. It is shameful.
Leo Gomes
While modern technology has given people powerful new
communication tools, it apparently can do nothing to alter the fact
that many people have nothing useful to say
Napoleon
History is a set of lies agreed upon.
Thomas Paine
That government is best which governs least.Abigail Van
Buren
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some
responsibility on their shoulders.
The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats
people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who
can't fight back.
George Washington
Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
Winston Churchill
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no
loss of enthusiasm.
Morgen JahnkeScientists now know that radium damages bone marrow
particularly, because the body treats it as calcium, depositing it
in the bones and providing it easy access to the marrow.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's
dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and
independent.
Art is merely the refuge, which the ingenious have invented,
when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the
tediousness of life.
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who
have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are
full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them,
and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised
and wounded.
Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a
complete use of the other five.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and
talk well but not too wisely.
Daniel Finkelstein on February 12, 2008
I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has heard of Lina
Joy?
Since Rowan Williams made his extraordinary intervention I have
been in correspondence with Malaysians with direct experience of
living under a parallel system of state and Sharia.
There have been numerous disputes concerning the correct courts
to be used in different cases.
One of the most famous controversies concerns Lina Joy. Actually
that's only her name now, her Christian name. Her birth name is
Azlina Jailani, and she was born a Muslim.
In 1981 Lina Joy became a Christian and she is trying to have
herself declared as such on her identity card, her MyKad. One
reason is that she wishes to marry her Christian boyfriend and it
is illegal for her to do this while she remains classified as a
Muslim.
However her attempts to have her conversion recognised have
failed.
The civil courts, and finally the highest court - the Federal
court - have ruled that she can't decide on her religion for
herself. She has to to be given approval by the Islamic courts.
Which, of course, is not forthcoming.
As the decision was announced last May, outside the federal
courts a crowd chanted Allahu Akhbar.
This is not the only type of case, by any means, where the joint
jurisdiction poses fundamental problems of human rights. Another
type concerns what is known as body snatching.
The conversion of non-Muslims near death without the knowledge
of their families has caused fierce rows. One reason, according to
my correspondents, is that conversion changes the destination of
any inheritance with Islamic courts deciding and inherited assets
flowing only to Muslim relatives or the community.
Divorce battles raise similar questions. Conversion by the
father in the run-up to a divorce gives him crucial advantages - he
gets custody, turns the children into Muslims and prevents his wife
using the civil courts.
Running a dual court system produces extraordinary practical
difficulties and the opportunity for human rights abuses. Just ask
the campaigners in Malaysia.
Ken Urquhart (commenting on David Miscavige, the leader of the
Church of Scientology)We could agree that Miscavige himself is in a
Condition of Below Condition, the formula for which we do not have.
I suggest one, neither seriously nor in jest, but in the spirit of
"If the cap fits, wear it":
Go away.
Go very, very, very far away.
Go further away.
Figure out how to become a member of the human race.
Start coming back step-by-step on your own.
Dont ever consider lying to yourself again.
Permit yourself to go through the horrors, on a very slow
gradient, of actually being truly in session with an auditor.
Repeat from #1 until #7 produces honest-to-goodness case gain
and honest return to the human race.
Re-program.
Ultimately, what David Miscavige does is largely up to him.Ayn
Rand
Mans motive power is his moral code. (Atlas Shrugged P445)
A prisoner brought to trial can defend himself only if there is
an objective principle of justice recognized by his judges, a
principle upholding his rights, which they may not violate and
which he can invoke. (Atlas Shrugged P477)
There is no way to disarm a man except through guilt. Through
that which he himself has accepted as guilt. If he has ever stolen
a dime, you can impose on him the punishment intended for a bank
robber and he will take it. (Atlas Shrugged P548)
Those parasites who assume a sickening air of moral
self-righteousness whenever they utter the standard bromides about
their concern for the welfare of others. (Atlas Shrugged P659)
He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects the
deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to
experience or to fake- a sense of self-esteem. The man who is
proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of
woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest
to conquer because only the possession of a heroine will give him
the sense of an achievement . (Atlas Shrugged P490)
Litigants obey the verdict of a tribunal solely on the premise
that there is an objective rule of conduct, which they both accept.
. (Atlas Shrugged P743)
If there are degrees of damnation, the scientist who places his
mind in the services of brute force is the longest-range murderer
on earth. . (Atlas Shrugged P745)
There is no conflict, and no call to sacrifice, and no man is a
threat to the aims of another if men understand that reality is an
absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned
cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the
destruction of a value which is will not bring value to that which
isnt. The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a
superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employers
wealth, the artist who envies a rivals higher talent theyre all
wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means
of their wish. . (Atlas Shrugged P798)
If my love of truth is left as my only possession, then the
greater the loss behind me, the greater the pride I may take in the
price I have paid for that love. My pride and my power of vision
were all I owned when I started and whatever I achieved, was
achieved by means of them. Both are greater now. . (Atlas Shrugged
P860)
He knew that they held him through nothing but his reluctance to
hurt them, his fear of their pain. . (Atlas Shrugged P971)
You have cried that mans sins are destroying the world and you
have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the
virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifices,
you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster, In
the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all of those
evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have
sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to
unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed
wealth to need. You have sacrificed self- esteem to self-denial.
You have sacrificed happiness to duty. . (Atlas Shrugged P1010)
Mans mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him,
survival is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. .
(Atlas Shrugged P1012)
To think is an act of choice. (Atlas Shrugged P1012)
There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe,
Existence or non-existence (Atlas Shrugged P1012)
A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the
universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part
contradict the whole. 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
ones thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate ones mind
and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. (Atlas Shrugged
P1016)
Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, mans only means of
knowledge, is his only standard of truth. (Atlas Shrugged
P1017)
The alleged short cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a
short circuit destroying the mind (Atlas Shrugged P1018)
The bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral
bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for
their vices (Atlas Shrugged P1020)
Mans consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of
acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit ones purpose, of
remaking the earth in the image of ones values (Atlas Shrugged
P1020)
That which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the
province of morality. If a man is evil by birth, he has no will, no
power to change it; if he has no will he is neither good nor evil:
a robot is amoral. To hold, as a mans sin, a fact not open to his
choice is a mockery of morality. To hold a mans nature as his sin
is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed
before he was born is a mockery of justice. (Atlas Shrugged
P1025)
You had known the independence of a rational consciousness
facing an open universe. That is the paradise you have lost, which
you seek which is yours for the taking. (Atlas Shrugged P1058)
Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. (Atlas
Shrugged P1058)
Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality not the degree of
your intelligence. (Atlas Shrugged P1059)
The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the
power that expands the potential of your life by raising the
productivity of your time. (Atlas Shrugged P1064)
All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the
choice of a goal. (Atlas Shrugged P1068)
The removal of a threat is not a payment, the negation of a
negative is not a rewardthe offer not to murder me is not a value.
(Atlas Shrugged P1102
If you had blood poisoning, would you adjust to it or act to
change it? (Atlas Shrugged P1103)
Thomas Jefferson
Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than
standing armies.
Earnest HemingwayThe 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. Donald Trump
I try to learn from the past, but plan for the future by
focusing exclusively on the present. Thats where the fun is.
Murray N. Rothbard (Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign
Policy)
Businessmen or manufacturers can either be genuine free
enterprisers or statists; they can either make their way on the
free market or seek special government favors and privileges. They
choose according to their individual preferences and values. But
bankers are inherently inclined toward statism.Michael Connelly
(from The Lincoln Lawyer, Page 27)
There is nothing about the law which I cherished anymore. The
law school notions about virtues of the adversarial system, of the
systems checks and balances, of the search for truth, had long
since been eroded like the faces of statues from other
civilizations. The law was not about truth, it was about
negotiation, amelioration, manipulation.
W Somerset Maugham
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who
have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are
full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them,
and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised
and wounded.
Margaret Thatcher
Europe was created by history. America was created by
philosophy.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of
government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow
operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Alan Ginsberg (beat generation poet)
Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the
culture.
John Mackay
(Forward to Fiat money inflation in France by Andrew Dickson
White)
Legislatures are as powerless to abrogate moral and economic
laws as they are to abrogate physical laws. They cannot convert
wrong into right nor divorce effect from cause
James Turk (Talking with Hugo Salinas Price at
Goldmoney.com)Proper Money or Sound Money is a constant form of
measurement. It is some weight of precious metal.Bill Bonner
The problem, if I may simplify, is that you can never know what
anything is worth unless you allow people to buy and sell freely.
And if you can't know what something is worth, you can't make
sensible investment decisions. You end up allocating capital to the
wrong places, which leads inevitably to massive bust-ups.
Justin Raimondo (The Banksters and American Foreign Policy)
"Left" and "right" mean nothing in the current context: the real
division is between government-privileged plutocrats and the rest
of us. What you have to ask yourself is this: which side are you
on?
Edmund Burke
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients,
and by parts ... the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is
for good men to do nothing.
http://www.fmxconnect.com (Afternoon Gold Fix February 25,
2011)
While exchanges herald the benefits of electronic trading there
is one thing wrong with it. Electronic trading minimizes the
information leakage associated with using brokers, for sure, but it
is also allows oligarchic organizations to anonymously manage price
movement while hiding behind digital displays. We wont use the word
manipulate, in part because of our libertarian bent, but its
getting ridiculous. Where there used to be 50 5-lot thieves on the
floor now there are five Too-Big-To-Fail banks with infinite
fed-sponsored balance sheets doing whatever they please. The idiot
locals on the floor, fragmented as they were, served to keep the
big banks in check because there was transparency of price and to a
large extent, the players were known. This doesnt exist anymore and
we dont see an end to it. Instead of thinning the forest for the
trees, technology, regulatory and economic factors have killed the
saplings and destroyed market diversity. This translates to a
narrow and deep liquidity pool in trading venues; god forbid if one
of them fails.
(My underlining).
And the final word comes from Scott Adams (Dilbert
Cartoonist)
Have you ever noticed that crazy people dont think theyre crazy?
Im talking about the run-of-the-mill wackos who populate your day.
They think theyre quirky or high maintenance or perfectionists, but
they rarely realize they are nuts. This got me thinking, what if Im
nuts and I dont know?
I started a list of all the things I do that could be construed
as crazy by an unkind observer. Number one on the list is creating
a list of all the things I do that could be construed as crazy by
an unknown observer Number two was wondering if writing number one
is redundant, since one is obviously a number. Number three or as I
call it now, just three, was overanalyzing everything. Soon I had
over forty items that were about the list itself. I decided those
dont count.