Unattributed Quotes

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

This is the difference between racism and prejudice. There is an unattributed definition of racism that defines it as prejudice plus power. Those disadvantaged by racism can certainly be cruel, vindictive, and prejudiced. Everyone has the capacity to be nasty to other people, to judge them before they get to know them. But there simply aren't enough black people in positions of power to enact racism against white people on the kind of grand scale it currently operates at against black people. Are black people over-represented in the places and spaces where prejudice could really take effect? The answer is almost always no.

You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breath and allow things to pass.

This is the difference between racism and prejudice. There is an unattributed definition of racism that defines it as prejudice plus power.

This is the difference between racism and prejudice. There is an unattributed definition of racism that defines it as prejudice plus power. Those disadvantaged by racism can certainly be cruel, vindictive and prejudiced. Everyone has the capacity to be nasty to other people, to judge them before they get to know them. But there simply aren’t enough black people in positions of power to enact racism against white people on the kind of grand scale it currently operates at against black people. Are black people over-represented in the places and spaces where prejudice could really take effect? The answer is almost always no.

It was a living house, the one that saw me born. If it sometimes gave off the scent of orange blossom in winter or some unattributable giggles were heard in the middle of the night, nobody was scared: they were part of the house’s personality, of its essence. There are no ghosts in this house, my father would say to me. What you hear are the echoes it has kept to remind us of all those who’ve been here. I

It was a living house, the one that saw me born. If it sometimes gave off the scent of orange blossom in winter or some unattributable giggles were heard in the middle of the night, nobody was scared: they were part of the house’s personality, of its essence. There are no ghosts in this house, my father would say to me. What you hear are the echoes it has kept to remind us of all those who’ve been here. I understood.

Through the fall, the president’s anger seemed difficult to contain. He threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” then followed up with a threat to “totally destroy” the country. When neo-Nazis and white supremacists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one of them killed a protester and injured a score of others, he made a brutally offensive statement condemning violence “on many sides … on many sides”—as if there was moral equivalence between those who were fomenting racial hatred and violence and those who were opposing it. He retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda that had been posted by a convicted criminal leader of a British far-right organization. Then as now, the president’s heedless bullying and intolerance of variance—intolerance of any perception not his own—has been nurturing a strain of insanity in public dialogue that has been long in development, a pathology that became only more virulent when it migrated to the internet. A person such as the president can on impulse and with minimal effort inject any sort of falsehood into public conversation through digital media and call his own lie a correction of “fake news.” There are so many news outlets now, and the competition for clicks is so intense, that any sufficiently outrageous statement made online by anyone with even the faintest patina of authority, and sometimes even without it, will be talked about, shared, and reported on, regardless of whether it has a basis in fact. How do you progress as a culture if you set out to destroy any common agreement as to what constitutes a fact? You can’t have conversations. You can’t have debates. You can’t come to conclusions. At the same time, calling out the transgressor has a way of giving more oxygen to the lie. Now it’s a news story, and the lie is being mentioned not just in some website that publishes unattributable gossip but in every reputable newspaper in the country. I have not been looking to start a personal fight with the president. When somebody insults your wife, your instinctive reaction is to want to lash out in response. When you are the acting director, or deputy director, of the FBI, and the person doing the insulting is the chief executive of the United States, your options have guardrails. I read the president’s tweets, but I had an organization to run. A country to help protect. I had to remain independent, neutral, professional, positive, on target. I had to compartmentalize my emotions. Crises taught me how to compartmentalize. Example: the Boston Marathon bombing—watching the video evidence, reviewing videos again and again of people dying, people being mutilated and maimed. I had the primal human response that anyone would have. But I know how to build walls around that response and had to build them then in order to stay focused on finding the bombers. Compared to experiences like that one, getting tweeted about by Donald Trump does not count as a crisis. I do not even know how to think about the fact that the person with time on his hands to tweet about me and my wife is the president of the United States.

KOPI LUWAK In Indonesia, Kopi Luwak refers to coffees that are produced by collecting the droppings of civet cats that have eaten coffee cherries. This semi-digested coffee is separated from the faecal matter and then processed and dried. In the last decade it has come to be seen as an amusing novelty, with unattributed claims of its excellent flavours, and it sells for spectacularly high prices. This has caused two main problems. Firstly, the forgery of this coffee is quite commonplace. Several times more is sold than produced, and often low-grade Robusta is being passed off at high prices. Secondly, it has encouraged unscrupulous operators on the islands to trap and cage civet cats, force-feed them with coffee cherries and keep them in terrible conditions. I find Kopi Luwak abhorrent on just about every level. If you are interested in delicious coffee then it is a terrible waste of money. One-quarter of the money you might spend on a bag could instead buy you a stunning coffee from one of the very best producers in the world. I can only regard the practice as abusive and unethical and I believe people should avoid all animal-processed coffees, and not reward this despicable behaviour with their money.

The tricky thing about living in a society that allows you freedom is that everyone else has it too. Some people can’t handle that. They can’t accept their neighbor making a different choice than they did. That’s the tricky part, letting someone else have the freedom to choose. A choice isn’t really a choice if there is only one option. It’s inherent with real choices—with true freedom—that everyone can make their own decisions. For us to be free, we have to come to terms with that. We have to understand that not every decision is ours to make. Not every decision is a good one. People call me a hero. They say that because I fought for them. Let me tell you, that was the easy part. The hard part, the part that really mattered, is what happened after. That’s what I want to be remembered for. Not because I fought. Not because I killed. Not because I survived. Remember me because I tolerated. Remember me because I accepted. Remember me because I understood that I’m not here to make your choices. If I had done that, if I had been just one more dictator sitting atop a golden throne, then it would have been for nothing. I didn’t free you from your oppressive rulers. I freed you from yourselves. I’m sorry if you don’t like it. Unattributed lecture series notes 37 A.W. City University

The tricky thing about living in a society that allows you freedom is that everyone else has it too. Some people can’t handle that. They can’t accept their neighbor making a different choice than they did. That’s the tricky part, letting someone else have the freedom to choose. A choice isn’t really a choice if there is only one option. It’s inherent with real choices—with true freedom—that everyone can make their own decisions. For us to be free, we have to come to terms with that. We have to understand that not every decision is ours to make. Not every decision is a good one. People call me a hero. They say that because I fought for them. Let me tell you, that was the easy part. The hard part, the part that really mattered, is what happened after. That’s what I want to be remembered for. Not because I fought. Not because I killed. Not because I survived. Remember me because I tolerated. Remember me because I accepted. Remember me because I understood that I’m not here to make your choices. If I had done that, if I had been just one more dictator sitting atop a golden throne, then it would have been for nothing. I didn’t free you from your oppressive rulers. I freed you from yourselves. I’m sorry if you don’t like it. Unattributed lecture series notes 37 A.W. City University

The tricky thing about living in a society that allows you freedom is that everyone else has it too. Some people can’t handle that. They can’t accept their neighbor making a different choice than they did. That’s the tricky part, letting someone else have the freedom to choose. A choice isn’t really a choice if there is only one option. It’s inherent with real choices—with true freedom—that everyone can make their own decisions. For us to be free, we have to come to terms with that. We have to understand that not every decision is ours to make. Not every decision is a good one. People call me a hero. They say that because I fought for them. Let me tell you, the fighting was the easy part. The hard part, the part that really mattered, is what happened after. That’s what I want to be remembered for. Not because I fought. Not because I killed. Not because I survived. Remember me because I tolerated. Remember me because I accepted. Remember me because I understood that I’m not here to make your choices. If I had done that, if I had been just one more dictator sitting atop a golden throne, then it would have been for nothing. I didn’t free you from your oppressive rulers. I freed you from yourselves. I’m sorry if you don’t like it. Unattributed lecture series notes 37 A.W. City University

Happiness is a room full of books and a closet (or two) full of shoes.

A bench of bishops is the devils flower garden

Bedroom terrorist, _ every night I steal my wife's bedclothes!

You ever looked at taxes on your paycheck and try to figure out when the government worked those 40 hours with you

He reimagined Ahura Mazdā as a unitive creative force (whereas before him divine agency was diffuse or unattributable), and as a consequence Zoroaster is often credited with innovating monotheism.

The something of someplace is the nothing of nowhere.