Sayings & Quotes

[zqwerty]

In 1933 Bertrand Russell wrote an essay that lamented the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany. The essay appeared under the title “Stupidity Rules” in the “San Francisco Examiner” of California. Russell employed a version of the saying:2

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.

[Lilith7]

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
James Baldwin

“If a book told you something when you were 15, then it will tell you it again when you're 50, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book.”
Ursula K Le Guin

[Lilith7]

“We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom.”
E.O.Wilson

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
Napoleon Bonaparte

[Lilith7]

“The smallest deed is greater than the greatest intention.”
John Burroughs

“Our deeds determine us, much as we determine our deeds.”
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

[zqwerty]

I studied "Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot for my Cambridge School Certificate 'O' Level together with other books.

"My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell was my favourite. I also liked "Ring of Bright Water" by Gavin Maxwell, it's a lovely tale with inevitable tragedy as well.

"Mill on the Floss" was shockingly boring and seemingly endless.

Kathleen Raine‘s “The Marriage of Psyche,”

He has married me with a ring, a ring of bright water
Whose ripples travel from the heart of the sea,
He has married me with a ring of light, the glitter
Broadcast on the swift river.
He has married me with the sun’s circle
Too dazzling to see, traced in summer sky.
He has crowned me with the wreath of white cloud
That gathers on the snowy summit of the mountain,
Ringed me round with the world-circling wind,
Bound me to the whirlwind’s centre.
He has married me with the orbit of the moon
And with the boundless circle of stars,
With the orbits that measure years, months, days, and nights,
Set the tides flowing,
Command the winds to travel or be at rest.

At the ring’s centre,
Spirit, or angel troubling the pool,
Causality not in nature,
Finger’s touch that summons at a point, a moment
Stars and planets, life and light
Or gathers cloud about an apex of cold,
Transcendent touch of love summons my world into being.

In summation it's a story of great love and tragedy:

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-ch...95629.html

[Lilith7]

Cheers for posting that - he seems to have been an interesting person, perhaps very much a product of his times to an extent.

We had to read Northanger abbey by Jane Austen which was also one of the most boring books I've ever had the misfortune to read.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Jim Elliot

“If you don't know where you are going, then any road will get you there.”
Lewis Caroll

[zqwerty]

This time with a picture:

   

[Lilith7]

“Its not what you look at that matters, its what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.”
Walter Scott

[zqwerty]

“Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” —Jean-Michel Basquiat

[Lilith7]

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
Nelson Mandela

[Lilith7]

“Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.”
Sophocles

“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science & technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science & technology.”
Carl Sagan

[Lilith7]

“Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence.”
Leonardo da Vinci

“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior & always have been.”
William Golding

[Lilith7]

“Ignorance might be bliss for the ignorant, but for the rest of us its a pain in the ass.”
Ricky Gervaise

“The existence of another poor person is not why you're poor. It's because the people who control everything refuse to increase your wages.”
Jessie Memer

[Lilith7]

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty & truth & compassion against injustice & lying & greed. If people all over the world would do this,it would change the earth.”
William Faulkner

“Reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised,”
Wislawa Szymborska

[Lilith7]

“We are like books. Most people see only our cover, the minority read the introduction, many people believe the critics. Few will know our content.”
Emile Zola

“Don't just teach your children to read.Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.The value of an educaion is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”
George Carlin.

[Lilith7]

“And in the end, I believe that we don't need to do anything to be loved. We spend our lives trying to seem prettier, smarter. But I realised two things.
Those who love us see us with their hearts & attribute qualities to us beyond those we really have.
And those who don't love us will never be satisfied with all our efforts.
Yes, I really believe it is important to leave our imperfections alone.
They are precious to understand those who see us with the heart.”
Frida Kahlo



“Rich kids should go to public schools.The mayor should ride the subway to work. When wealthy people get sick, they should be sent to public hospitals. Business executives should have to stand in the same airport security lines as everyone else.
The very fact that these people want to buy their way out of all these experiences points to the reason why they shoudn't be able to. Private schools & private limos & private doctors & private security are all pressure release valves that eliminate the friction that would cause powerful people to call for all or some of these bad things to get better.
The degree to which we allow the rich to insulate themselves from the unpleasant reality that others are forced to experience is directly related to how long that reality is allowed to stay unpleasant.
When they are left with no other option, rich people will force improvement in public systems. Their public spirit will be infinitely less urgent when they are contemplating these things from afar than when they are sitting in a hot ER waiting room for six hours
themselves.”
Azspot

[Lilith7]

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling,a way of looking at things that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is,set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, & taken yours.
Alan Bennett

“Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth.”
Albert Camus

[Lilith7]

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, & by the rulers as useful.”
Seneca

'Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

[Lilith7]

“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted & changed by human beings. Resistance & change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”
Ursula K. Le Guin


"The creative adult is the child who has sirvived.”
Ursula K. Le Guin

[Lilith7]

“No darkness lasts forever. And even then, there are stars.”
Ursula K. Le Guin

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
Ursula K. Le Guin