“
What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?"
"Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
...Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed all mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.
[Letters to John Taylor, 1814, XVIII, p. 484]
”
”
John Adams (The Letters of John and Abigail Adams)
“
As we have taken the circle as a symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as a symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its head a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because is has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
“
Aaron held him and reached down to free a surprisingly big cock, measuring it with his hand. "Wow, where'd you get all this?"
"Stole it from my last boyfriend."
"Knew you were trouble.
”
”
K.A. Mitchell (Collision Course (Florida Books, #2))
“
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of the truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
”
”
John Stuart Mill (On Liberty)
“
Preserving freedom of speech maximizes the chance of truth emerging from its collision with error and half-truth.
”
”
Nigel Warburton (Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
“
Some good-byes are as gentle and inevitable as sunset, while some blindside you like a collision you didn't see coming. Some good-byes are schoolyard bullies you are powerless to stop, while others punctuate the end of a relationship because you decided: enough. Some are heartbreaking, leaving you a little more damaged than you were before, others set you free.
”
”
Bianca Marais (Hum If You Don't Know the Words)
“
When the Christian Crusaders in the East came into collision with that invincible order of assassins, that order of free spirits par excellence, whose lowest grade lives in a state of discipline such as no order of monks has ever attained, then in some way or other they managed to get an inkling of that symbol and tally- word, that was reserved for the highest grade alone as their secretum, "Nothing is true, everything is allowed," — in sooth, that was freedom of thought, thereby was taking leave of the very belief in truth.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals)
“
Is it possible that my walls are specifically erected and intentionally reinforced out of the fear that God calls me to an existence without walls? And if this is so, do I realize that I am the warden of prison that I created in which I myself am the prisoner?
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough (An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus)
“
It would be truly foolish to let the decline of communism blind us to the long-term contradictions in a free market economy unrestrained by considerations of the environment and social justice, and driven by heedless consumerism, instant gratification, and the quick fix. Our dedication to growth at all costs puts us on a collision course with the environment. Our dedication to the illusion of endless climaxes puts us on a collision course with the human psyche.
”
”
George Leonard (Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment)
“
He had thrilled to his own power only in the throes of sex, when he didn't have the presence of mind to know that pleasure wouldn't last forever, and in the flush of freedom, when he was too innocent to know he wasn't free.
Now he seized the power that came from that collision of sex with freedom called love.
”
”
Steve Erickson (Arc d'X)
“
During the late 1910s and early ’20s, immigrant workers at the Ford automotive plant in Dearborn, Michigan, were given free, compulsory “Americanization” classes. In addition to English lessons, there were lectures on work habits, personal hygiene, and table manners. The first sentence they memorized was “I am a good American.
”
”
Anne Fadiman (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures)
“
To all who have discerning eyes, it is apparent that the republican form of government established by our noble forefathers cannot long endure once fundamental principles are abandoned. Momentum is gathering for another conflict-a repetition of of the crisis two hundred years ago. This collision of ideas is worldwide. Another monumental moment is soon to be born. The issue is the same that precipitated the great premortal conflict-will men be free to determine their own course of action or must they be coerced?
”
”
Ezra Taft Benson (The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner)
“
During the late 1910s and early ’20s, immigrant workers at the Ford automotive plant in Dearborn, Michigan, were given free, compulsory “Americanization” classes. In addition to English lessons, there were lectures on work habits, personal hygiene, and table manners. The first sentence they memorized was “I am a good American.” During their graduation ceremony they gathered next to a gigantic wooden pot, which their teachers stirred with ten-foot ladles. The students walked through a door into the pot, wearing traditional costumes from their countries of origin and singing songs in their native languages. A few minutes later, the door in the pot opened, and the students walked out again, wearing suits and ties, waving American flags, and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.
”
”
Anne Fadiman (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures)
“
developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last sixty-six million years. Other planets in the galaxy, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision-free period to evolve intelligent beings.
”
”
Stephen Hawking (Brief Answers to the Big Questions)
“
I was reflecting, in the first place,” replied Dantes, “upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?” “Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced—from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
I was reflecting, in the first place,” replied Dantes, “upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?” “Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
If the view is correct, then humanity misses the opportunity to exchange truth for error. If, however, the view is misguided, then we forfeit an opportunity to reinforce truth through its collision with error. Every opinion has value for us either because it is true, or else because, though false, it reinforces the truth and contributes to its emergence.
”
”
Nigel Warburton (Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
“
Tengo had no particular desire for other women. What he wanted most of all was uninterrupted free time. If he could have sex on a regular basis, he had nothing more to ask of a woman. He did not welcome the unavoidable responsibility that came with dating a woman his own age, falling in love, and having a sexual relationship. The psychological stages through which one had to pass, the hints regarding various possibilities, the unavoidable collisions of expectations: Tengo hoped to get by without taking on such burdens.
The concept of duty always made Tengo cringe. He had lived his life thus far skillfully avoiding any position that entailed responsibility, and to do so, he was prepared to endure most forms of deprivation.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 Book 1 (1Q84, #1))
“
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
”
”
Richard V. Reeves (All Minus One: John Stuart Mill's Ideas on Free Speech Illustrated)
“
What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?” “Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced—from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
Alert> Five Chikoya approaching, open assault formation. Multiple target acquisition. Armed> Disruptor pulse. Maximum power rating. Sequential fire. U-shadow update: landing exit capsule behind Building-D. Armed> Neutron lasers. Maximum power rating. Sequential fire. U-shadow update: decoy capsules on collision vector. Mach eight. Accelerating. Armed> Microkinetics. Enhanced explosive warheads. Free fire authority. Armed> Ariel smartseeker stealth mines. Chikoya profile loaded. Dispense. Alert> New targets.
”
”
Peter F. Hamilton (The Evolutionary Void (Void, #3))
“
When you think about Laos and about not having enough food and those dirty and torn-up clothes, you don't want to think. Here it is a great country. You are comfortable. You have something to eat. But you don't speak the language. You depend on other people for welfare. If they don't give you money you can't eat, and you would die of hunger. What I miss in Laos is that free spirit, doing what you want to do. You own your own fields, your own rice, your own plants, your own fruit trees. I miss that feeling of freeness. I miss having something that really belongs to me.
”
”
Anne Fadiman (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures)
“
So why haven’t we been visited? Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy—or in the observable universe—on which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self-reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence. We are used to thinking of intelligent life as an inevitable consequence of evolution, but what if it isn’t? The Anthropic Principle should warn us to be wary of such arguments. It is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes.
It is not even clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value. Bacteria, and other single-cell organisms, may live on if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Perhaps intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution, as it took a very long time—two and a half billion years—to go from single cells to multi-cellular beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available before the Sun blows up, so it would be consistent with the hypothesis that the probability for life to develop intelligence is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life.
Another way in which life could fail to develop to an intelligent stage would be if an asteroid or comet were to collide with the planet. In 1994, we observed the collision of a comet, Shoemaker–Levy, with Jupiter. It produced a series of enormous fireballs. It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about sixty-six million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human would have almost certainly been wiped out. It is difficult to say how often such collisions occur, but a reasonable guess might be every twenty million years, on average. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last sixty-six million years. Other planets in the galaxy, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision-free period to evolve intelligent beings.
A third possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form and to evolve to intelligent beings, but the system becomes unstable and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion and I very much hope it isn’t true.
I prefer a fourth possibility: that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. In 2015 I was involved in the launch of the Breakthrough Listen Initiatives. Breakthrough Listen uses radio observations to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, and has state-of-the-art facilities, generous funding and thousands of hours of dedicated radio telescope time. It is the largest ever scientific research programme aimed at finding evidence of civilisations beyond Earth. Breakthrough Message is an international competition to create messages that could be read by an advanced civilisation. But we need to be wary of answering back until we have developed a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilisation, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus—and I don’t think they thought they were better off for it.
”
”
Stephen Hawking (Brief Answers to the Big Questions)
“
laws of dynamic motion seem to contradict the randomness generally attributed to collisions between atoms. The ancient philosophers had already pointed out that any natural process can be interpreted in many different ways in terms of the motion of and collisions between atoms. This was not a problem for the atomists, since their main aim was to describe a godless, law less world in which man is free and can expect to receive neither punishment nor reward from any divine or natural order. But classical science was a science of engineers and astronomers, a science of action and prediction. Speculations based on hypothetical atoms could not satisfy its needs. In contrast, Newton’s law provided a means of predicting and manipulating. Nature thus becomes law-abiding, docile, and predictable, instead of being chaotic, unruly, and stochastic. But what is the connection between the mortal, unstable world in which atoms unceasingly combine and separate, and the immutable world of dynamics governed by Newton’s law, a single mathematical formula corresponding to an eternal truth unfolding toward a tautological future?
”
”
Ilya Prigogine (Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature)
“
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”
”
Bill Wyte
“
To keep my life free of evil I must of necessity keep my life full of God, for keeping my life full of anything else will give evil everything else.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough (An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus)
“
The most elusive and ultimately impossible act of liberation is freedom from sin and self, and no document or declaration of man regardless of how exquisitely penned can do that. Such an astonishing act of liberation could only have been penned in one place: the cross.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough (An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus)
“
In the past, the states best able to manage events beyond their borders have been those best able to avoid the temptation to overreach. Great powers remain great in large measure because they posses wisdom to temper active involvement in foreign interventions - to remain within the limits of a national strategy that balances ambition with military resources. The first principle of the strategic art states simply that the greatest weight of resources be devoted to safeguarding the most vital interests of the state. If a vital interest is threatened, the survival of the state is threatened. Generally, the most vital interest of a liberal democracy include, first and foremost, preservation of the territorial integrity of the state. The example of the attacks on New York and Washington should send a message to those of similar ambitions that the surest way to focus the wrath of the American people against them would be to strike this country within its borders again. The second strategic priority is the protection of the national economic welfare by ensuring free and open access to markets for vital materials and finished goods. Other important but less vital interests should be defended by the threat of force only as military resources permit.
Outside the limits of U.S. territory, the strategic problem defining the geographic limits of U.S. vital interests becomes complex. While the United States may have some interests in every corner of the world, there are certain regions where its strategic interests, both economic and cultural, are concentrated and potentially threatened. These vital strategic "centers of gravity" encompass in the first instance those geographic areas essential to maintaining access to open markets and sources of raw material, principally oil. Fortunately, many of these economically vital centers are secure from serious threat. But a few happen to be located astride regions that have witnessed generations of cultural and ethnic strife.
Four regions overshadow all others in being both vital to continued domestic prosperity and continually under the threat of state-supported violence. These regions are defined generally by an arc of territories along the periphery of Eurasia: Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and north East Asia. For the past several centuries, these regions have been the areanas of the world's most serious and intractable conflicts. Points of collision begin with the intersection of Western and Eastern Christianity and continue southward to mark Islam's incursion into southeastern Europe in the Balkans. The cultural divide countries without interruption across the Levant in an unbroken line of unrest and warring states from the crescent of the Middle East to the subcontinent of South Asia. The fault-line concludes with the divide between China and all the traditional cultural competitors along its land and sea borders.
Other countries outside the periphery of Eurasia might, in extreme cases, demand the presence of U.S. forces for peacekeeping or humanitarian operations. But it is unlikely that in the years to come the United States will risk a major conflict that will involve the calculated commitment of forces in a shooting war in regions outside this "periphery of Eurasia," which circumscribes and defines America's global security.
”
”
Robert H. Scales
“
own. Save a parrot’s tree. Save ten. Without our help, without needed legislative protection and worldwide consciousness-raising on their behalf, parrots will be lost in short years to come. It is fitting to end this book with this succinct summation from Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States: We are at an odd moment in history. There are more people in this country sensitized to animal protection issues than ever before. The Humane Society of the United States alone has 8 million members, and in addition, there are more than 5,000 other groups devoted to animal protection. At the same time, there are more animals being harmed than ever before—in industrial agriculture, research and testing, and the trade in wild animals. It is pitiful that our society still condones keeping millions of parrots and other wild birds as pets—wild animals that should be free to fly and instead are languishing in cages, with more being bred every day. It’s an issue of supply and demand and it’s also an issue of right and wrong. Animals suffer in confinement, and we have a moral obligation to spare them from needless suffering. Every person can make a difference every day for animals by making compassionate choices in the marketplace: don’t buy wild animals as pets, whether they are caught from the wild or bred in captivity. If we spare the life of just one animal, it’s a 100% positive impact for that creature. If we can solve the larger bird trade problem, it will be 100% positive for all parrots and other wild birds in the U.S. and beyond our borders. I believe we will look back in 50 -75 years and say “How could we as a society countenance things like the decades long imprisonment of extraordinarily intelligent animals like parrots?” Acknowledgments For this work, which took more than two and a half years to research and write, I amassed thousands of documents and conducted several hundred interviews with leading scientists, environmentalists, paleontologists, ecological economists, conservationists, global warming experts, federal law enforcement officers, animal control officers, avian researchers, avian rescuers, veterinarians, breeders, pet bird owners, bird clubs, pet bird industry executives and employees, sanctuaries and welfare organizations, legislators, and officials with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and other sources in the United States and around the world.
”
”
Mira Tweti (Of Parrots and People: The Sometimes Funny, Always Fascinating, and Often Catastrophic Collision of Two Intelligent Species)
“
A choice is an act of god, malevolent or loving is your will, free until conflicting with others who share this power, a true collision of good and evil.
”
”
K.R. Royal
“
Mindfulness (A poem)
***
MINDFULNESS
******
We're sitting on a hill,
reminiscing about our deeds.
These are mesmerising moments of ease;
scenes are harmonising in keys.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
We think about the nice days from our teens;
the things that we did at our free will.
We're in sync with the future and past tensions.
Indeed, we could enjoy the present intentions.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
We envision our problems gone;
with collisions exposed and pawned.
Oh! We could enjoy this peaceful time,
on this hill, watching the sunrise.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
The beautiful birds stride pass our face.
Thick cuticles blurred, striped by hours of grace.
They flap their wings, forming art;
tail lamps for us, bleeding hearts.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
People of different cultures come to us.
Simple, they offer their services; no Judas.
Wave their hands with care;
give their food to share.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
What a sad case this is;
our mindfulness is butchered.
Heads are swimming inbetween
the past and the future.
Opportunities to love others in truth
are being missed.
Communities could share love so true;
limiting the rifts.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
“
In 1968,” he continued, “Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich echoed Malthus in many ways in a wildly influential book entitled The Population Bomb, again predicting an inevitable disaster that never came. He later declared with conviction that four billion people worldwide, and sixty-five million Americans, would die of starvation by the year 1990. “In the seventies, many scientists became convinced that the globe was cooling, and raised alarms that a new ice age was just around the corner.” Elias shook his head. “I could provide endless examples of other coming disasters and doomsday scenarios that evoked widespread anxiety, but that were grossly exaggerated. Acid rain and low sperm counts. Y2K, AIDS, Ebola, mad-cow disease, and killer bees. The bird flu and the reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles. Severe shortages of everything under the sun, from oil, to food, to zinc. Black holes created by the Large Hadron Collider, and unstoppable genetically engineered organisms breaking free of the lab. Famine, nuclear war, and asteroid collisions. Oh, yeah, and predictions of the near extinction of all species on Earth, which was supposed to have already occurred. And on and on and on. Esteemed scientists or government experts convinced us to fear all of these coming catastrophes. Most never happened at all. Those that did wreaked only a tiny fraction of the havoc that we were assured was coming.
”
”
Douglas E. Richards (Veracity)
“
Money is the great weapon in free, equal, and competitive society, which skill and capital employ in the war of the wits, to exploitate and oppress the poor, the improvident, and the weak-minded. Its evil effects are greatly aggravated by the credit and banking systems, and by the facilities of intercommunication and locomotion which the world now possesses. Every bargain or exchange is more or less a hostile encounter of wits. Money vastly increases the number of bargains and exchanges, and thus keep society involved, if not in war, at least in unfriendly collision.
”
”
George Fitzhugh (Cannibals All! or, Slaves Without Masters)
“
The public debt of the Union would be a further cause of collision between the separate States or confederacies. The apportionment, in the first instance, and the progressive extinguishment afterward, would be alike productive of ill-humour and animosity. How would it be possible to agree upon a run of apportionment satisfactory to all? There is scarcely any that can be proposed which is entirely free from real objections. These, as usual, would be exaggerated by the adverse interest of the parties. There are even dissimilar views among the States as to the general principle of discharging the public debt. Some of them, either less impressed with the importance of national credit, or because their citizens have little, if any, immediate interest in the question, feel an indifference, in not a repugnance, to the payment of the domestic debt at any rate.
”
”
Alexander Hamilton
“
It was the kind of collision where there was no time for courtship, where two wounded planets lock into orbit and can never quite free themselves from the insistence of their gravitational pull.
”
”
Reif Larsen (I Am Radar)
“
Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
“
We're sitting on a hill,
reminiscing about our deeds.
These are mesmerising moments of ease;
scenes are harmonising in keys.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
We think about the nice days from our teens;
the things that we did at our free will.
We're in sync with the future and past tensions.
Indeed, we could enjoy the present intentions.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
We envision our problems gone;
with collisions exposed and pawned.
Oh! We could enjoy this peaceful time,
on this hill, watching the sunrise.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
The beautiful birds stride pass our face.
Thick cuticles blurred, striped by hours of grace.
They flap their wings, forming art;
tail lamps for us, bleeding hearts.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
People of different cultures come to us.
Simple, they offer their services; no Judas.
Wave their hands with care;
give their food to share.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
What a sad case this is; our mindfulness is butchered.
Heads are swimming between the past and the future.
Opportunities to love others in truth are being missed.
Communities could share true love; limiting the rifts.
But we're in a state of oblivion,
shunned from the view of fate in this period.
”
”
Mitta Xinindlu
“
The ancient philosophers had already pointed out that any natural process can be interpreted in many different ways in terms of the motion of and collisions between atoms. This was not a problem for the atomists, since their main aim was to describe a godless, law less world in which man is free and can expect to receive neither punishment nor reward from any divine or natural order. But classical science was a science of engineers and astronomers, a science of action and prediction. Speculations based on hypothetical atoms could not satisfy its needs. In contrast, Newton’s law provided a means of predicting and manipulating. Nature thus becomes law-abiding, docile, and predictable, instead of being chaotic, unruly, and stochastic.
”
”
Ilya Prigogine (Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature (Radical Thinkers))
“
The relationship between the famous and the public who sustain them is governed by a striking paradox. Infinitely remote, the great stars of politics, film and entertainment move across an electric terrain of limousines, bodyguards and private helicopters. At the same time, the zoom lens and the interview camera bring them so near to us that we know their faces and their smallest gestures more intimately than those of our friends. Somewhere in this paradoxical space our imaginations are free to range, and we find ourselves experimenting like impresarios with all the possibilities that these magnified figures seem to offer us. How did Garbo brush her teeth, shave her armpits, probe a worry-line? The most intimate details of their lives seem to lie beyond an already open bathroom door that our imaginations can easily push aside. Caught in the glare of our relentless fascination, they can do nothing to stop us exploring every blocked pore and hesitant glance, imagining ourselves their lovers and confidantes. In our minds we can assign them any roles we choose, submit them to any passion or humiliation. And as they age, we can remodel their features to sustain our deathless dream of them.
In a TV interview a few years ago, the wife of a famous Beverly Hills plastic surgeon revealed that throughout their marriage her husband had continually re-styled her face and body, pointing a breast here, tucking in a nostril there. She seemed supremely confident of her attractions. But as she said: ‘He will never leave me, because he can always change me.’
Something of the same anatomizing fascination can be seen in the present pieces, which also show, I hope, the reductive drive of the scientific text as it moves on its collision course with the most obsessive pornography. What seems so strange is that these neutral accounts of operating procedures taken from a textbook of plastic surgery can be radically transformed by the simple substitution of the anonymous ‘patient’ with the name of a public figure, as if the literature and conduct of science constitute a vast dormant pornography waiting to be woken by the magic of fame.
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J.G. Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition)
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By seeking to remake all the existing traditions and institutions deemed to be flawed beyond reform, totalitarian democracy came in full collision with its liberal rival and became, in [Jacob] Talmon's words, 'an exclusive doctrine represented by a vanguard of the enlightened who justified themselves in the use of coercion against those who refused to be free and virtuous.' Liberal democracy, he argued, proceeds differently. It acknowledges uncertainty, imperfection, and limited knowledge and works with the assumption that individuals may not be coerced into following a predetermined path and that they are capable of reaching a state of order and prosperity through a gradual process of trial and error.
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Aurelian Craiutu (Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes (Haney Foundation Series))
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Without free expression humankind may be robbed of ideas that would otherwise have contributed to its development. Preserving freedom of speech maximizes the chance of truth emerging from its collision with error and half-truth. It also reinvigorates the beliefs of those who would otherwise be at risk of holding views as dead dogma.
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Nigel Warburton (Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))