We look back upon history and what do we see, empires rising and falling, revolutions and counter- revolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth dispersed. Shakespeare has spoken of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back on my own fellow countryman in England, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world. Most of them convinced in the words of what is still a popular song, that the god who made them mighty shall make them mightier yet. I’ve heard of a craze-cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I’ve seen an Italian clown saying he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I’ve heard of a murderous Georgian in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser than Soloman, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than (any wise man). I have seen America wealthier, and in terms of military weapons, more powerful than the rest of the world put together. So had the American people so desired, they could have out done a Caesar or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquest. All in one life time - all in one life time - all gone - gone with the wind. England, part of a tiny island of the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he help found and dominate for some three decades. All in one life time, all gone with the wind. Behind the debris of our self-styled-soloman supermen, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have hope - - the person of Jesus Christ. (And I present him to you as the veritas, the Truth - - and it does matter because the truth does.)
Quoting: British Journalist, Malcom Muggeridge (1903 to 1990)
Quoting: British Journalist, Malcom Muggeridge (1903 to 1990)
Speech: The Harvard Veritas Forum (1992)
The vegans […] are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.
Book: Kitchen Confidential
People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well, that’s my burden, I guess.
TV: Dexter
You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who keeps his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds. (Dag Hammarskjold, Past Secretary-General of the UN)
Book: The Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People
We’re all miracles. You know why? Because as humans, everyday we go about our business, and all that time, we know, we all know, that the things we love, the people we love at any time can all be taken away. We live knowing that, and we keep going anyway.
Movie: Little Children
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in a human situation.
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admiration, egotism, generosity, greed, human, kindness, self-interest, traits, value
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“It has always seemed strange to me,” said Doc. “The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
Book: Cannery Row
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings 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.”
There is no doubt that human survival will continue to depend more and more on human intellect and technology. It is idle to argue whether this is good or bad. The point of no return was passed long ago, before anyone knew it was happening.
It’s funny how people only say that after they do something bad. I mean, you never hear someone say, “I’m only human” after they rescue a kid from a burning building.
Movie: The United States of Leland
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings”.
The computer is both blessing and curse for it makes possible calculations once beyond the reach of human endurance while at the same time also making them beyond the hope of human verification.
You see, human beings are designed for many things, but loneliness isn’t one of them.
TV: Desperate Housewives
We’re using technology to extend the human nervous system. The Internet is a kind of global prosthetic extension of human consciousness. It wasn’t consciously intended as one but it amounts to one.
Movie: “No Maps For These Territories” a Documentary