Augustine of Hippo on time – The profound quote you must understand!
"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know."
Augustinus von Hippo
Zitate
Philip Dormer Stanhope | A weak mind is like a microscope
"A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones."
Philip Dormer Stanhop
Christian Slater | We live in a kingdom of bullshit
"Is any of it real? I mean, look at this, look at it! A world built on fantasy! Synthetic emotions in the form of pills! Psychological warfare in the form of advertising! Mind altering chemicals in the form of food! Brainwashing seminars in the form of media! Controlled isolated bubbles in the form of social networks. Real? You want to talk about reality? We haven't lived in anything remotely close to it since the turn of the century! We turned it off, took out the batteries, snacked on a bag of GMOs, while we tossed the remnants into the ever expanding dumpster of the human condition. We live in branded houses, trademarked by corporations, built on bipolar numbers, jumping up and down on digital displays, hypnotizing us into the biggest slumber mankind has ever seen. You'd have to dig pretty deep, kiddo, before you can find anything real. We live in a kingdom of bullshit, that even you have lived in for far too long. So don't tell me about not being real: I'm no less real than the fucking beef patty in your big mac. As far as you are concerned, Elliot, I am very real. We are all together now, whether you like it or not."
Christian Slater
George Washington | a frightful despotism
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."
George Washington
Philip K. Dick | Today we live in a society in which spurious realities
"Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."
Philip K. Dick
Mind control isn’t hard to understand
"Mind control isn't hard to understand. If you do what the TV says, the TV is controlling your mind and you're not. 2 billion people just pushed an experimental medicine under their skin, which was never healthy, simply because the TV told them to. That's mind control."
Unknown
Matt Kahn | the simple difference between clarity and confusion
"Most people don’t see their beliefs. Instead their beliefs tell them what to see. That’s the simple difference between clarity and confusion."
Matt Kahn
Aldous Huxley | The victim of mind-manipulation
"The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective."
Aldous Huxley
Max Planck | There is no such thing as matter in itself
"Gentlemen, as a physicist who has dedicated his entire life to the sober pursuit of science, to the exploration of matter, I am certainly free from the suspicion of being taken for an idle dreamer.
And so, after my investigations into the atom, I declare this: There is no such thing as matter in itself.
All matter comes into being and persists only through a force—a force that sets the particles of the atom into vibration and binds them together as the minutest solar system of the cosmos. Yet, since neither an intelligent nor an eternal force exists within the vast expanse of the universe—for humanity has failed to devise the long-sought perpetuum mobile—we must posit behind this force a conscious, intelligent spirit. This spirit is the primal source of all matter. It is not the visible, transient matter that constitutes the real, the true, the actual—for without the spirit, matter would not exist at all—but rather the invisible, immortal spirit that is the ultimate truth! Yet, since spirit alone cannot exist either, and every spirit belongs to a being, we are compelled to assume the existence of spiritual beings. And since these beings cannot arise from themselves but must be created, I do not shy away from naming this mysterious creator as all civilized peoples of the earth have called Him in earlier millennia: God! Thus, the physicist, tasked with the study of matter, steps from the realm of the material into the realm of the spirit. And with that, our work concludes, and we must entrust our inquiry to the hands of philosophy."
Max Planck
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
Yuri Bezmenov | Warning against subversion and intellectual slavery
"Die meisten amerikanischen Politiker, Medien und Bildungseinrichtungen glauben, sie lebten in Friedenszeiten. Das ist ein Irrtum. Die Vereinigten Staaten befinden sich in einem Krieg – einem nicht erklärten, aber umfassenden Krieg gegen die grundlegenden Werte und das Fundament der amerikanischen Gesellschaft. Ziel der marxistischen Ideologie war es, diese Werte zu untergraben, die Wirtschaft zu destabilisieren und Krisen auszulösen, um die freie Welt in Richtung sowjetischer Strukturen zu verändern.
Die höchste Form der Kriegsführung besteht nicht darin, physisch zu kämpfen, sondern darin, die wertvollsten Elemente eines Landes systematisch zu unterwandern – bis der Gegner die Realität so verzerrt wahrnimmt, dass er den Angreifer nicht einmal mehr als Feind erkennt."
Yuri Bezmenow
yoice.net | The illusion of rebellion (why many anarchists are not)
"Most so-called “anarchists” aren’t anarchists at all.
The moment they’re confronted with a “scientific authority,” they turn into infantile, wide-eyed children – eager to be told a comforting story so they can put their rose-colored glasses back on and keep dreaming.
I can easily picture a podcast hosted by “anarchists,” where both host and guest wear NASA t-shirts – loudly denouncing politicians and power structures, while failing to realize that modern “science” – the new priesthood – is a core pillar of the very system that enslaves them.
Because the most solid walls of the Matrix are built from so-called scientific dogmas, postulates, narratives, axioms, models, paradigms, fantasy constructs, theories, frameworks, system laws, guiding principles, consensus formulas, imperial doctrines, and untouchable terms.
Anything that has the word “science” conveniently added at the end – like political science, media science, economic science, social science, or legal science – is, in truth, normative science.
It has little to do with real, open-ended inquiry, and much to do with justification, authority, and control – the domain of propaganda and modern religion.
This is uncritical loyalty to science – disguised as rebellion."
yoice.net
William Barrett | Warning about the loss of consciousness (science vs. scientism)
"In short, no sooner has science entered the modern world than it becomes dogged by its shadow, scientism. What is this peculiar phenomenon we call scientism? It is not science, any more than the shadow is anywhere identical with the substance of a thing. Nor is science ever evidence of scientism. At most, science merely serves to heat up the imagination of certain minds—and they are not few—who are too prone to sweeping and unqualified generalizations in the first place. ^Scientism is pseudoscience or misinterpreted science. Its conclusions are sweeping and large, and therefore sometimes pretend to be philosophical. But it is not a part of philosophy, if by philosophy we mean the effort to think soberly within the restrictions that human reflection must impose for itself. No; scientism is neither science nor philosophy, but that peculiarly modern invention and malady—an ideology. And as such, along with other ideologies that beset us, it has become a permanent part of our modern culture."
William Barrett
Mark Twain | It is a great consolation in elections
"It is a great consolation in elections that only one of several candidates can be elected!"
Mark Twain
Benjamin Netanjahu | must support Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas
"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state must support Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas [...] This is part of our strategy to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank"
Benjamin Netanjahu
Norbert W. Bolz | All the notable experts
"All the notable experts support government policy because you only become a notable expert if you support government policy."
Norbert W. Bolz
Ronald Reagan | As government expands, liberty contracts
"When you've got to the point when you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 39th birthday you can sit back sometimes, review your life, and see it flowing before you. For me there was a fork in the river, and it was right in the middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to believe you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with my career in the entertainment world, but I ultimately went into politics because I wanted to protect something precious.
Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ``We the People.'' ``We the People'' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. ``We the People'' are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ``We the People'' tell the government what it is allowed to do. ``We the People'' are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past 8 years.
But back in the 1960's, when I began, it seemed to me that we'd begun reversing the order of things -- that through more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the government was taking more of our money, more of our options, and more of our freedom. I went into politics in part to put up my hand and say, ``Stop.'' I was a citizen politician, and it seemed the right thing for a citizen to do.
I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."
Ronald Reagan
Hermann Göring | to enslave people is to scare them
"It was very easy, it has nothing to do with Nazism, it has something to do with human nature. You can do it in a Nazi, socialist, communist regime, in a monarchy and even in a democracy. The only thing that needs to be done to enslave people is to scare them. If you manage to find a way to scare people, you can make them do what you want."
Hermann Göring
George Orwell | The really frightening thing about totalitarianism
"The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future."
George Orwell
Bruce Lee | Don’t speak negatively about yourself
"Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn't know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that's why it's called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life."
Bruce Lee
Yuri Bezmenow | the tragedy of the situation of demoralization
"Exposure to true information does not matter anymore.
A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information.
The facts tell nothing to him.
Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures.
Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union, and show him a concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom.
When the military boot crushes his balls, then he will understand, but not before that.
That is the tragedy of the situation of demoralization."
Yuri Bezmenow
Yuval Noah Harari | The chief value of science is power
Die Wahrheit war nie die höchste Priorität der menschlichen Gesellschaft. Sie war die höchste Priorität einiger Individuen, aber niemals der Gesellschaft als Ganzes – denn die Gesellschaft funktioniert nicht auf der Basis von Wahrheit. Wenn man zwei der mächtigsten Institutionen der Menschheit betrachtet – die Wissenschaft (und ihre Gemeinschaft) sowie die Religion (und ihre Kirchen) –, dann hat keine von ihnen die Wahrheit als ihren zentralen Wert. Für einzelne Menschen mag das gelten, aber nicht für die Institutionen als solche.
Der Hauptwert der Wissenschaft ist Macht; der Hauptwert der Religion ist Ordnung und Organisation. Religion dient dazu, Ordnung in der Gesellschaft aufrechtzuerhalten, während es der Wissenschaft in erster Linie um Macht über die Welt geht.
