Voltaire | throw stones at those who are showing a new road
"Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road."
Voltaire
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Thomas Paine | A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."
Thomas Paine
Joseph Goebbels | If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Joseph Goebbels
René Guénon | the apostles of tolerance, like all propagandists
We cannot help noticing that, like all propagandists, the apostles of tolerance, truth to tell, are very often the most intolerant of men. This is what has in fact happened, and it is strangely ironical : those who wished to overthrow all dogma have created for their own use, we will not say a new dogma, but a caricature of dogma, which they have succeeded in imposing on the western world in general; in this way there have been established, under the pretext of "freedom of thought," the most chimerical beliefs that have ever been seen at any time, under the form of these different idols, of which we have just singled out some of the more important."
René Guénon
Dave Chappelle | Being “awake” isn’t cool
"Being "awake" isn't cool. It means having to dumb down 98% of your conversations every day so you don't sound like a lunatic."
Dave Chappelle
Peter Hübner | It’s an industrial arrangement based on the idea of mass filling
"I am always irritated by the fact that they are not really schools at all. We don't see places for living and learning, but barracks. Along long corridors, one room stands at attention next to the other. All the classrooms have the same shape. The children are crammed in, all facing the blackboard. The teacher writes, the children copy. It's an industrial arrangement based on the idea of mass filling."
Peter Hübner
Anita Hofmann | by practicing a state on a small scale, namely at school
"This is about: What is actually best for children and young people? And how do they get their education and how do they become citizens? Because that is also the goal of our schooling, that I am an educated person who can also fulfill my civic duties and for that I need appropriate behavior and I learn that not only explicitly through knowledge, but also implicitly by practicing a state on a small scale, namely at school."
Anita Hofmann
Yuval Noah Harari | it would be very tempting, and easy, to toss you overboard
"Your future depends on the goodwill of a small elite. Maybe there is goodwill for a few decades. But in a time of crisis – like climate catastrophe – it would be very tempting, and easy, to toss you overboard."
Yuval Noah Harari
William Shakespeare | All the world’s a stage
"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances"
William Shakespeare
George Bernard Shaw | The longer I live, the more convinced am I
"The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum."
George Bernard Shaw
Avro Manhattan | No political event or circumstance can be evaluated
"No political event or circumstance can be evaluated without the knowledge of The Vatican's part in it. And no significant world situation exists in which The Vatican does not play an important explicit or implicit role."
Avro Manhattan
Henry Louis Mencken | And what is a good citizen?
"And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps."
Henry Louis Mencken
Frantz Fanon | Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong
"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
Frantz Fanon
Ray Comfort | Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don’t exist
"Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don’t exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists — like the painting experts hated the painter — hate God because He does exist."
Ray Comfort
Charles H. Spurgeon | Es wird eine Zeit kommen
"A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats."
Charles H. Spurgeon
Friedrich Nietzsche | Insanity is a rare thing in individuals
"Insanity is a rare thing in individuals, but the rule in groups, parties, peoples and times."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Charles Bukowski | How in the hell could a man enjoy
"How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?"
Charles Bukowski
Gabriel Laub | Die hartnäckigsten Anhänger der Sklaverei
"The most stubborn supporters of slavery were not the slave owners, but the privileged slaves."
Gabriel Laub
Vladimir Lenin | Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed?
"Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?"
Vladimir Lenin
Communist Party | When certain obstructionists become too irritating
"When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them, after suitable build-ups, as Fascist or Nazi or anti Semitic ... to discredit them. In the public mind, constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell. The association will, after enough repetition, become 'fact' in the public mind."
Communist Party
Max Weber | All political entities are violent entities
"All political entities are violent entities. But the type and degree of the use or threat of external violence against other similar entities plays a specific role in the structure and fate of political communities. Not every political entity is equally "expansive" in the sense that it seeks power externally, i.e., making force available for the purpose of acquiring political power over other territories and communities, whether in the form of incorporation or [of] dependency. The political entities are thus, to varying degrees, outwardly turned entities of violence."
Max Weber
Vladimir Lenin | We can and must write in a language
"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us."
Vladimir Lenin
Hermann Rotermund | short devotional in a living room chapel
"The tone is gently authoritarian, leaving no doubt that this is the way the world is and no other way [....]Proclaimers of unassailable truths [....] The broadcast gives the impression of a short devotional in a living room chapel."
Hermann Rotermund
Carl Sagan | Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking
"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreshadowing of an America in the time of my children or grandchildren – when the United States is a service and information economy; when Almost all major manufacturing industries have moved to other countries; when terrible technological powers are in the hands of too few, and no one representing the public interest can understand the issues; when people have lost the ability to set their own agenda. Lost or deliberately questioned by those in power; when, holding our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our vital faculties decline, in distinguishing between what feels good and what is true Unable, we go back to superstition and darkness, almost without noticing.
America’s downfall is most evident in the slow decay of real content in the most influential media, 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), credible presentations on lowest common denominator programming, pseudoscience and superstition, but especially From a kind of celebration of ignorance."
Dr. Carl Edward Sagan
Konrad Lorenz | To the extent that handicrafts are wiped out by the competition of industry
"To the extent that handicrafts are wiped out by the competition of industry, and to the extent that the smaller entrepreneur, including the farmer, becomes unable to exist, we are all quite simply forced to submit in our way of life to the wishes of the large producers, to eat the food and put on the clothes they think good for us, and what is worst of all, by virtue of the conditioning bestowed upon us, we do not even realize that they are doing so."
Konrad Lorenz
John Henry Mackay | I am an Anarchist
"Ever reviled, accursed, ne’er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
“Wreck of all order,” cry the multitude,
“Art thou, and war and murder’s endless rage.”
O, let them cry. To them that ne’er have striven
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word’s right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest’s thrill?
I cannot tell—but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!"
John Henry Mackay
Murray Rothbard | not for equal freedom but for equal slavery
"The egalitarians are arguing not for equal freedom but for equal slavery or equal robbery in the name of “fairness."
Murray Rothbard
Bill Maher | If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight
"If kids knew what they wanted to be at age eight, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me for eye removal and peg leg surgery."
Bill Maher
Theodore Dalrymple | Political correctness is communist propaganda
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
Theodore Dalrymple
Mark Passio | The more moral a population is, the freer it becomes
"The more moral a population is, the freer it becomes. The more immoral a population is, the deeper into bondage and slavery it goes. Another way of saying this is to say that the presence of truth and morality in the lives of the people of any given society is always inversely proportional to the presence of tyranny and slavery in that society. The more truth and morality there is, the less tyranny and slavery there is. The less truth and morality there is, the more tyranny and slavery there is. That's the Law of Freedom. And many people don't want to understand that; that these two things are inextricably interwoven and connected and can never be separated from each other: the presence of truth and morality in a society and the presence of freedom or its lack in a society."
Mark Passio
