HIDDEN GEMS
Social media is awash with literary quotes to impress and amuse. This page contains a selection that in my view we would do well to take stock of. To much liberty is sacrificed in the pursuit of self-gratitfication from the "infinite scroll" and stimuli provided by others to keep us distracted.
“Living with the daily ugliness of slum life, educational castration and economic exploitation, some ghetto dwellers now and then strike out in spasms of violence and self-defeating riots. A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard. It is the desperate, suicidal cry of one who is so fed up with the powerlessness of his cave existence that he asserts that he would rather be dead than ignored.”
Martin Luther King Jr
In the long run men inevitably become the victims of their wealth. They adapt their lives and habits to their money, not their money to their lives. It preoccupies their thoughts, creates artificial needs, and draws a curtain between them and the world." Herbert Croly
"The deep critical thinker has become the misfit of the world, this is not a coincidence. To maintain order and control you must isolate the intellectual, the sage, the philosopher, the savant before their ideas awaken people." Carl Jung
If you surrender everything to the government and give it total power to plan the whole economy, this will not guarantee your economic security, but it will guarantee the descent of the entire nation to a level of miserable poverty, as the practical results of every totalitarian economy, communist or fascist, have demonstrated. Ayn Rand
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us... Marianne Williamson
“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” Noam Chomsky
A man is great not because he hasn’t failed; a man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him. Confucius
Capitalism is, fundamentally, an economic system that promotes inequality. Annalee Newitz
“The systems responsible for our oppression cannot be the same systems responsible for our liberation.”
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” H. Jackson Brown Jr.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. Emo Philips
Life tells its own story. Children go to bed hungry and babies die from mold. We witness the return of slums and working people shivering on the doorsteps of food banks. We've had 14 years of plans for the future! Well, the future is here, what now?
Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off. Ayn Rand
Wealth and status breed social blindness and self-absorption. The richest are often the dumbest. And their self-adulation makes them think they are the most qualified to order others about.
“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 disseminating continuous distractions, entertainment and insignificant information.” Noam Chomsky
You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of your problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage is contagious and can take on a life of its own.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of humankind.” Mahatma Gandhi
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. Albert Einstein
All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.Buddha
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. Buddha
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance. Buddha
“If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.” Thomas Jefferson
“Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.” Henry George
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. Albert Einstein
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. Buddha
"If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." J. K. Rowling
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Elie Wiesel
"I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service." John F. Kerry
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." Henry David Thoreau
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.” Ayn Rand
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. Ayn Rand
If you surrender everything to the government and give it total power to plan the whole economy, this will not guarantee your economic security, but it will guarantee the descent of the entire nation to a level of miserable poverty--as the practical results of every totalitarian economy, communist or fascist, have demonstrated. Ayn Rand
“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 men to live without breaking laws.” Ayn Rand
“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.” Noam Chomsky
"There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation, and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful." Dalai Lama