“One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.”
― Alain de Botton
“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Traces of Texas
The Texas Quote of the Day:
"Men talked hopefully of the future; children reveled in the novelty of the present; but the women ---- ah, there was where the situation bore the heaviest. As one old lady remarked, Texas was "a heaven for men and dogs, but a hell for women and oxen." They ---- the women ---- talked sadly of the old homes and friends left behind ... of the hardships and bitter privations they were undergoing and the dangers that surrounded them. They had not even the solace of constant employment. The spinning wheel and loom had been left behind. There was, as yet, no use for them ---- there was nothing to spin. There was no house to keep in order; the meager fare was so simple as to require little time for its preparation. There was no poultry, no dairy, no garden, no books ... no schools, no churches .... nothing to break the monotony of their lives, save an occasional wrangling of the children and dogs. The men at least had the excitement of killing game and cutting bee trees."
----- Noah Smithwick, "Evolution of a State," 1900
“But what if the monsters come?"
"Fancy." Kit looked away from the drama to stare at her sister, surprised. "We are the monsters.”
― Dia Reeves, Slice of Cherry
One of the strongest features of Puritanism is its autobiographical tendency, its passionate self-regard.
Tom Paulin
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
not the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
― Charles Darwin
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Dom Helder Camara, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings
All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct. Carl Sagan
How many civilizations other than human do you think he could name?
"Who Will Take Over The Universe?"
"The Ghost of John F. Dulles hangs/over America like dirty linen/draped over the wintry red sunset" (Allen Ginsberg)
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.
Robert Fulghum
“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.”
― Isaac Newton
@edgarblythe,
A very good example is our president, the racial bigot, liar, scammer, and wife cheater, and the voters who put him there.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
C. S. Lewis
“The real trouble with war is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.”
― Ezra Pound
@edgarblythe,
The trouble with war is both sides pray to god to win. It's the same with sports.
“Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
― Bertrand Russell
@edgarblythe,
That's also true of the general public. Witnesses to an accident see different things.
https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/perspectives.htm
“I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.”
― Stephen King
