Quotes, Poems, & Sayings...

[Hack]

I've reached the age where competence is a turn-on. -- Billy Joel

[BestButchBoy]

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."
~Gore Vidal

[JakeTulane]

“I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays--let them overtake me unexpectedly--waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: Why this is Christmas Day!” David Grayson

[JakeTulane]

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” - T.E. Lawrence

[JakeTulane]

“Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.” - Author Unknown

[Hack]

The secret of charm is bullshit. -- Tyrone Power

[Spirit Dancer]

Use your consciousness as an adventure.
Anonymous

[Spirit Dancer]

Love is a force. . . . It is not a result;
it is a cause. It is not a product.
It is a power, like money, or steam
or electricity. It is valueless unless you
can give something else by means of it.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

[Spirit Dancer]

One of the paradoxes of our time is that
we have more power at our disposal than
ever before, and yet we seem more powerless than ever.

Ralph W. Sockman (1953)

[Spirit Dancer]

If we do not rise to the challenge of our unique capacity to shape our lives, to seek the kind of growth that we find individually fulfilling, then we can have no security; we will live in a world of sham, in which our selves are determined by the will of others, in which we will be constantly buffeted and increasingly isolated by the changes round us.

Nena O’Neil

[weatherboi]

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
Marquis de Sade

[Kätzchen]

Chapter 1 - "Fighting for Our Lives"

"the argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it- in an adversarial from of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done..." (p. 3)


"we hoped to do our part to ameliorate the conflict by focusing on commonalities (in response to a flawed PR campaign) [...] The promise of controversy seems an easy and natural way to rouse interest. But serious consequences are often intended: Stirring up animosities to get a rise out of people, though easy and "provocative," can open old wounds or create new ones that are hard to heal. This is one of many dangers inherent in the argument culture..." (p. 7)

"our determination to pursue truth by setting up a fight between two sides leads us to believe that every issues has two sides - no more, no less: If both sides are given a forum to confront each other, all the relevant information will emerge, and the best case will be made for each side. BUT, opposition does not lead to truth when an issue is not composed of two opposing sides but is a crystal of many sides. Often the truth is in the complex middle, not the over-simplified extremes..." (p. 10)

"What does it matter that our public discourse is filled with military metaphors? Aren't they just words? Why not talk about something that matters - like actions? Because words matter. When we think we are using language, language is using us. As linguist Dwight Bolinger put it (employing a military metaphor), language is like a loaded gun: It can be fired intentionally, but it can wound or kill just as surely when fired accidentally. The terms in which we talk about something shape the way we think about it - and even what we see..." (p. 14)

"it's as if we value a fight for its own sake, not for its effectiveness in resolving disputes. This ethic shows up in many contexts. In a review of a contentious book, for example, a reviewer wrote, "Always provocative, sometimes infuriating, this collection reminds us that the purpose of art s not to confirm and coddle but to provoke and confront." This false dichotomy encapsulates the belief that if you are not provoking and confronting, then you are confirming and coddling - as if there weren't a myriad of other ways to question and learn. What about exploring, exposing, delving, analyzing, understanding, moving, connecting, integrating, illuminating... or any of innumerable verbs that capture other aspects of what art can do?" (p. 23-24)

and finally:

"Philospher JOhn Dewey said, on his ninetieth birthday, "Democracy begins in conversation." In conversation we form the interpersonal ties that bind individuals into a community. In conversation we exchange the many types of information that citizens in a democracy need in order to decide how to vote [...] Of course, it is the responsibility of intellectuals to explore potential weaknesses in others' arguments, and of journalists to represent serious opposition when it exists. BUT, when opposition becomes the overwhelming avenue of inquiry - a formula that requires another side to be found or a criticism to be voiced; when the lust for opposition privileges extreme views and obscures complexity; when our eagerness to find weaknesses blinds us to strengths; when the atmosphere of animosity precludes respect and poisons our relations with one another; then the argument culture is doing more damage than good" (p. 25)


Reference:

Tannen, Deborah. (1998).Fighting for Our Lives. In, The Argument Culture (pp. 3-26). New York, NY: Ballantine Books Publishers.

[Hack]

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed. — Christopher Isherwood

[Diva]

Sometimes, not often enough,
We reflect upon the good things;
And those thoughs always center around those we love.
And I think about those people who mean so much to me;
And for so many years have made me so very happy.
And I count the times I have forgotten to say 'thank you',
And just how much I love them.

~The Carpenters, "Sometimes"

[Diva]

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

~Benjamin Disraeli

[Maria]

She's a diamond that wants to stay coal. Tom Waits

[Hack]

Nora Charles: Take care of yourself
Nick Charles: Why, sure I will.
Nora Charles: Don't say it like that! Say it as if you meant it!
Nick Charles: Well, I do believe the little woman cares.
Nora Charles: I don't care! It's just that I'm used to you, that's all.

[MrSunshine]

Hogs get slaughtered~ my brother

[Kätzchen]

I love that you get cold when it is 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle in your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

[Chaoticsoul]

I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter any more, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me