“You must pay for everything in this life, one way and another. There is nothing free, except the grace of God.”
—Mattie Ross (as played by Hailee Steinfeld)
January 2011
72 posts
“I do not know. Possibly in the belief that it would make him more dead.”
—Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn
“Well, if it ain’t cocked and loaded, it don’t shoot.”
—Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (as played by Jeff Bridges)
December 2010
17 posts
“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all…. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise…. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.”
—Saruman the White
It never really works this way in real life, either; anyone who thinks they’re not selling out is seriously deluding themselves.
It never really works this way in real life, either; anyone who thinks they’re not selling out is seriously deluding themselves.
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
- The Man: Do you ever wish you would die?
- Old Man: No. It's foolish to ask for luxuries in times like these.
- --from "The Road"
“…when you dream about bad things happening, it means you’re still fighting and you’re still alive. It’s when you start to dream about good things that you should start to worry.”
—The Man, from “The Road”
“
If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
” —Lilla Watson
“No more lives torn apart,
that wars will never start,
and time will heal our hearts.
Every man will have a friend,
that right will always win,
and love will never end.” —“Grown-up Christmas List”, lyrics by Linda Thompson-Jenner
that wars will never start,
and time will heal our hearts.
Every man will have a friend,
that right will always win,
and love will never end.” —“Grown-up Christmas List”, lyrics by Linda Thompson-Jenner
“Won’t that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop.”
—Walter Gibbs, from TRON (1982)
“He who submits to tyranny would be a tyrant himself.”
—paraphrasing Jose Rizal
“I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me”
—Treebeard from The Lord of the Rings
“You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.”
—the last words of Richard Holbrooke (via officialssay) — the U.S. has fallen victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” — they don’t call it the graveyard of Empires for nothing
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
—Audre Lorde (via vertebrabyvertebra)
“Ever since then I’ve been like running behind him like I’m a rabbit and he had a carrot in his butt.”
—Anthony Mackie
“We are now living in a global state that has been structured for the benefit of non-human entities with non-human goals.”
—
from “Invaders from Mars” http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars.html — Charlie Stross commenting on corporations
There are two anecdotes from residency that sort of reinforced my nihilistic tendencies and made me decide not to worry too much about the future: (1) not as many people really want to be cardiothoracic surgeons these days http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-02-13-cardiac-jobs-usat_x.htm — meaning that if I ever need life-saving chest-cracking surgery in the future because of trauma or really bad coronary artery disease, there won’t be anyone to do it, and (2) they haven’t come out with any new antibiotics targeting highly-resistant Gram negative bacilli since 1996 — it’s only a matter of time before they’re resistant to everything we’ve got, and then we’re truly screwed http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/settings/lab/lab_imipenem.html — yeah, cheerful, I know.
“
Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
” —Matthew 6:16, New Revised Standard Version
“Tonight’s Simpsons episode was brought to you by the symbol umlaut, and the number e; not the letter e, but the number whose exponential function is the derivative of itself.”
—The Simpsons, “The Fight Before Christmas”
“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”
—Charles Bukowski
I’m giving it a try. It’s pretty slow-going, I have to admit.
I’m giving it a try. It’s pretty slow-going, I have to admit.
