If the cells and fibre in one human brain were all stretched out end to end, they would certainly reach to the moon and back. Yet the fact that they are not arranged end to end enabled man to go there himself. The astonishing tangle within our heads makes us what we are.
- Colin Blakemore

"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916, Ch.9

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." -- Albert Einstein

"Most of the things worth doing in the world have been declared impossible before they were done." -- L. Brandeis

"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way." -- Bertrand Russell, in "Roads to Freedom"

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind" -- Mahatma Gandhi

"...a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice." Martin Luther King in his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, when he criticised those who preferred the former type of peace.

"I am for peace. And I am for a negotiated peace. But this accord is not a just peace. " -- Edward Said in an interview about the Middle East Peace Process.

"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 Helda Camara

"Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups" -- Paul Krugman

What if the house of your ego was suddenly swept away by the river of your soul. Would you build another house immediately or go with the flow?

"Speech is blasphemy, silence a lie. Above speech and silence there is a way out."-- I-Tuan

With my intellect, I see cause for nothing but pessimism and even despair. But I can't settle for what my intellect tells me. That's not all of it. There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. That's enough to keep my heart optimistic no matter how pessimistic my mind. --Madeline L'Engle

-I want peace on Earth, and goodwill towards men. -This is the United States Government. We don't do that sort of thing. --from "Sneakers"

"Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skill to enrich the future, the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit." ~Tom Robbins

"He who binds to himself a joy Doth the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise."
- William Blake

To reduce man to the duties of his own city, and to disengage him from duties to the members of other cities, is to break the universal society of the human race. -- Cicero

How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things? I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects, in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate when your depths resound. Yet everything that touches us, me and you, takes us together like a violin's bow, which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings. Upon what instrument are we two spanned? And what musician holds us in his hand? Oh sweetest song.
-- rainer maria rilke

"If you are going through hell, keep going."--Churchill.

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much To win the affection of intelligent people And the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics, And endure false betrayal of friends, To appreciate beauty, To find the best in others, To leave the world a bit better, Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch Or a redeemed social condition, To know even one life has breathed easier Because you lived, This is to have succeeded.

Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth --1 John 3:18

in a vicious world--to love virtue in a craven world--to have courage in a wavering world--to stand firm in a cruel world--to show mercy in a biased world--to act justly in a shameless world--to live nobly in a hateful world--to forgive in a venal world--to be honest in a heartless world--to be human in a killing world--to create in a sick world--to be whole in an epoch of unself -- to be oneself" ~e.e. cummings~

"All public education's task is to vulgarize the genius of young people in such a way that only natures of extraordinarily strong neurotic tendencies are enabled to escape banality." -- Gregor von Rezzori

"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that mosts frightens us. we ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?` Actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of God. Your playing small doesn`t serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won`t feel insecure around you. We were born to test the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our lights shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others." -Nelson Mandela

"The true harvest of my daily life is as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched." -Thoreau

A person who thinks, sees life as a comedy. A person who feels, a tragedy.

"Once they have slept together they will have to find something else to veil the enormous absurdity of their existence" -Jean-Paul Sartre (Nausea)

"to be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorised, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slighted resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

'anything you want to, do it. wanna change the world- there's nothing to it. -willy wonka

"I say I fear being healthy in a sick world means being numb to it" - Aliki Barnstone (from her poem 'Psychology')

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -Oscar Wilde

"Before I criticize a man, I walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he's a mile away and barefoot."

If I had my life to live over I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual trouble, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter that I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds, I would pick more daisies. - Nadine Stair

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity. -G. Bernard Shaw

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." -- Abraham Lincoln

For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight and see the dawn before the rest of the world.

-Oscar Wilde-

Renton: Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a big fucking television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electric tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage payments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite and higher purchase a wide range of fucking fabrics. Choose D.I.Y. and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting in a large couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows stuffing fucking junk food in your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish fucked-up brats you've sworn to replace yourself. Choose your future, choose life. But why would you want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else.

Paul: Look, it's a school of whales.
Ringo: They look a little bit old for school.
Paul: University then.
Ringo: University of whales.
John: They look like drop-outs to me. (Yellow Submarine)

Spock: I prefer the concrete. The graspable. The proveable.
Kirk: You'd make a splendid computer, Mr. Spock!
Spock: That is very kind of you, Captain.

"I'd love to stay here and be normal but it's just so overrated" -Blur

If you really want to do something, you'll find a way; if you don't, you'll find an excuse.In times when the passions are beginning to take charge of the conduct of human affairs, one should pay less attention to what men of experience and common sense are thinking than to what is preoccupying the imagination of dreamers.
- Alexis de Tocqueville

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
- Jule Renard

"I have no fear, but that the result of our experiment will be, that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. Could the contrary of this be proved, I should conclude either that there is no God, or that He is a malevolent being." --Thomas Jefferson

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an INVISIBLE MAN...LIVING IN THE SKY...who watches every thing you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever 'til the end of time...

but he loves you." (George Carlin)

maggies plan:
The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Thoreau

It's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years that do." --- Adlai Stevenson

"And before I took one breath / I knew i would only see his shadow in what life was left."

Slicing happens in little moments. Joy runs over hours. - Amaris?

"it's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom"

I'll trot along and deconstruct some ideologies now. -Amaris :)

"Ernest Hemingway wrote, 'The world is a fine place and it is worth fighting for.' I agree with the last part." -Seven

the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

-Jung

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt in the sun? What is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides so that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered. Kahlil Gibran

"I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These things which he has thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up."

"It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it." - J. Bronowski

"A stone's throw from Jerusalem. I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight and though a million stars were shining my heart was lost on a distant planet" -Sting

Beauty is one of the great facts in the world--like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon. --Oscar Wilde

"The foundation of our everyday world, according to Heisenberg,is no more substantial than a promise." -- Nick Herbert in Quantum Reality

"A bit of lusting after someone does wonders for you and is good for your skin." - Model and actor Elizabeth Hurley

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient. ~Sri Swami Sivananda

"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign" (~J.S.Mill)