You know of the disease called "sleeping sickness." There also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take it as a warning. Your soul suffers if you live superficially. —Albert Schweitzer More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage. —Ian McEwan More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I do think that women could make politics irrelevant by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action, the likes of which we have never seen — just so far from people's ideas of state structure and viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy. And what it is is very subtle forms of interrelation which do not follow some hierarchical pattern that is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy, but fraternity. And I think it's women who are going to have to break the spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation. —Germaine Greer More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it's dark. —Zen proverb More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Suddenly, it becomes a subversion of progress to assert the common-sense principle that communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them, not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit. —Theodore Roszak More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads. People get the history they deserve. —Charles De Gaulle More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future. —Jessamyn West More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
When I read about some important moment or era in history, I always take it for granted that the people it happened to were aware of what was going on. In my mind's eye, I see the agricultural workers of England during the Industrial Revolution feeling the pinch and saying to each other, "Eh, lad," or whatever agricultural workers would say in those days, "what dost tha expect? It's this Industrial Revolution at the bottom of it. —Emily Hahn More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
What we call "human nature" in actuality is human habit. —Jewel Kilcher More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There is something wrong in a government where those who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. —Robert Ingersoll More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Virtue consisted in winning: it consisted in being bigger, stronger, handsomer, richer, more popular, more elegant, more unscrupulous than other people — in dominating them, bullying them, making them suffer pain, making them look foolish, getting the better of them in every way. Life was hierarchical and whatever happened was right. There were the strong, who deserved to win and always did win, and there were the weak, who deserved to lose and always did lose, everlastingly. —George Orwell More about this quote Tags: virtue pain winning bullying domination Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up. —Voltaire More about this quote Tags: history change class Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be. —Rita Rudner More about this quote Tags: humanity respect wealth Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things. —Willa Cather More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. This is the secret discipline. It is a refusal to let the creative act be dissolved away in immediate sense experience, and a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope. —Ruben Alves More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email