William Shatner
“Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.
I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.
I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.
This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable."
~ William Shatner, 2022
"The stakes are things like: are all of the people around the world who are on the extreme right and oppose democracy, are they going to be cheered and and buoyed up by Russian victory, or are the people who are in favour of democracy and counting votes and things like that, are they going to be cheered and buoyed up and supported by a Ukrainian victory?"
--Timothy Snyder
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/timothy-snyder-ukraine-history/
"There are going to be a lot of people who are going to have to decide whether they want to support Trump and his aims or they're going to support the US Constitution because a lot of Trump's aims are in direct contradiction to the Constitution."
--Beau of the Fifth Column
"In book 8 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates argues that people are not naturally led to self-governance but rather seek a strong leader to follow. Democracy, by permitting freedom of speech, opens the door for a demagogue to exploit the people’s need for a strongman; the strongman will use this freedom to prey on the people’s resentments and fears. Once the strongman seizes power, he will end democracy, replacing it with tyranny. In short, book 8 of The Republic argues that democracy is a self-undermining system whose very ideals lead to its own demise. Fascists have always been well acquainted with this recipe for using democracy’s liberties against itself; Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels once declared, 'This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed.' Today is no different from the past. Again, we find the enemies of liberal democracy employing this strategy, pushing the freedom of speech to its limits and ultimately using it to subvert others’ speech."
Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
Any fool can start a war, and once he's done so, even the wisest of men are helpless to stop it - especially if it's a nuclear war.
--Nikita Khrushchev,
He's five foot-two and he's six feet-four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
Been a soldier for a thousand years
He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist, and a Baptist, and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn't kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada
He's fighting for France
He's fighting for the U.S.A
And he's fighting for the Russians
And he's fighting for Japan
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
He's fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
Who's to live and who's to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall
But without him
How would Hitler have condemned them at Labau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war
And without him all this killing can't go on
He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from here and there and you and me
And brothers, can't you see?
This is not the way we put the end to war
- Buffy Sainte-Marie
“The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.”
Mary Shelley
The poison sank and it paralyzed my will
I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
That they had been deserted from above
So on battlefields from here to Barcelona
I'm listed with the enemies of love
And long ago she said "I must be leaving,
Ah but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I'm sleeping
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan"
So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there, I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
And people call me traitor to my face
The Traitor - Leonard Cohen
Unsheathing my bowie knife, I proceeded to cut my way through a wall of human flesh.
- W C Fields
Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.
Sarah Palin
These insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words. Insults then, had some class!
1. "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play;
Bring a friend, if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.
"Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second...If there is one."
- Winston Churchill, in response.
2. A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows, or of some unspeakable disease."
· "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
3. "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
4. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
- Clarence Darrow
5. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
6."Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas
7. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
- Mark Twain
8. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.."
- Oscar Wilde
9. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop
10."He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
- John Bright
11. "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb
12. "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson
13. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
- Paul Keating
14. "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
- Charles, Count Talleyrand
15. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
- Forrest Tucker
16. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
- Mark Twain
17. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
- Mae West
18. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde
19. "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... For support rather than illumination."
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
20. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder
21. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx.
22."He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Winston Churchill
poketa-poketa-poketa-poketa
What-the-hell are you people doing in an art-gallery anyway? If you’re looking for art, you won’t find it here. You might as well hope to find religion in a church, health in a pill-bottle, youth in a jar of cosmetics, or true-love in a brothel.”
-- Mike Brown, 1972 Australian artist
I understand what he's saying here except for the first statement about art in a gallery. What does he mean by that statement? Is he saying that art is totally subjective? Or is he saying that art as a consumer object is not art?
In my opinion it's consumer led art in many instances.
@edgarblythe,
Yeah, I've I was misread that statement as art in a museum rather than a gallery. Obviously, art is in a gallery just to be sold.
From ancient times, men have mourned great things put to petty uses. – Lu You, Southern Song Dynasty
Histories of ages past
Unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity
The crying of humanity
Donovan
That was weawy awfuwy good weg of wamb
Elmer Fudd
from M*A*S*H*
PA System: Due To circumstances beyond our control, lunch will be served today.
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
Abbie Hoffman
