Who Are We?

The overriding question here is simple: Who are we? This election represents a giant mirror, a chance to find out who we are as a people. The issue is whether America is still the scared, reactionary, sclerotic, profoundly creaky nation that it has been for the last eight years, or whether it's ready to shrug off the Bush era and begin anew. It comes down to whether America is old or young.

--Gary Kamiya

The Soul of Marriage

The soul of marriage is created by small acts, small words, and small, everyday interactions.

--Thomas Moore

Overt and Unashamed

The attacks will be overt and unashamed, except for the National Review types who will phrase their racism with their usual apparent cognitive dissonance: "Since I know I'm not a racist, I can say whatever racist thing pops into my head, and if you think the racist thing I just said was racist that proves you are the real racist."

--Lance Mannion

Experience, A Spider Web

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.

--Henry James

What's the Point

And what's the point of all this excess wealth we have been creating if it doesn't lead to more leisure time? Surely that is the point of earning more than you need? But it seems the wealthier we get, the harder and longer we have to work. It's all upside down.

--Dharmaruci

Hope Alone

Of course, hope alone is not enough, but it's not trivial. It's not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.

--Tim Shriver

Problems and Beauty

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

--Buckminster Fuller

Level of Fame

They should draw an equation: What level of fame do you need to achieve to keep doing what you want? Because you don't want any more than that.

--Tina Fey

Deep Wisdom

There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it.

--Elizabeth A. Behnke

A World

A world of made is not a world of born.

--e.e. cummings

All Your Questions

In the solitude of your mind are the answers to all your questions about life. You must take the time to ask and listen.

--Bawa Mahaiyaddeen

Food

God comes to the hungry in the form of food.

--Mahatma Gandhi

Let The Reader Catch

The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.

--Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart

A Pack

History is, after all, only a pack of tricks we play on the dead.

--Voltaire

Finished

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

--Benjamin Franklin

Closest Non-Human Relationship

A home is often the closest non-human relationship we have in our lives. It can represent your identity, your autonomy, your spirituality.

--Lois Vitt

Another Language

To know another language is to have a second soul.

--Charlemagne

More Than Human

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human.

--Thomas Jefferson

Vanity Swells

Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain--at least in a poor country like Russia--and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.

--Leon Trotsky

Comments, Facts

Comments are free, but facts are sacred.

--Charles Prestwich Scott

The Trouble

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

--Will Durant

Take It

Take it easy, but take it.

--Anonymous

A Full Hour

Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.

--St. Francis de Sales

Affects All

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sexual Orgies

I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.

--Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

Understand Everything

It has taken me all my life to understand it is not necessary to understand everything.

--Rene Coty

Memory

As a protection against financial illusion or insanity, memory is far better than law. When the memory of the 1929 disaster failed, law and regulation no longer sufficed.

--John Kenneth Galbraith

Mystify

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

--Douglas Adams

Brothers and Sisters

Historians and novelists are kin, but they're more like brothers who throw food at each other than like sisters who borrow each other's clothes.

--Jill Lepore

What We Bear

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

--Victor Frankl

Mere Wealth

Of all forms of tyranny, the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy.

--John Pierpont Morgan

Introspection

People at the top need a relaxed perspective, which gives judgment and balance. Workaholism is an introspection-killing disease, the anxious disability of tunnel-vision middle managers.

--Camille Paglia

House of Cards

Banks and brokerages are a house of cards built on the confidence of clients, creditors and counterparties. If you take chunks out of that confidence, things can go awry pretty quickly. It could happen to any one of the brokers.

--David Trone (brokerage analyst)

Nothing Human

Nothing human is beneath a writer's attention.

--Garrison Keillor

Doubt and Belief

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

--Henri Poincaré

Local Group

The fully realized man does not identify with the local group.

--Abraham Maslow

Died Out

If men never succumbed to the attractions of women, then the human species would have died out a long time ago.

--Daniel Spitzer (neurosurgeon, brother of Eliot)

Modified Ape

After all, it is as respectable to be modified ape as to be modified dirt.

--T.H. Huxley

Squandered

We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us.

--George Carlin

Answered Prayers

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.

--Truman Capote

What Light I Have

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

--Abraham Lincoln

I Love Science

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

--Robert Sapolsky

Addiction

Politicians have become completely addicted to money, so trying to change the system is like trying to take heroin from a heroin addict.

--John McCain

Many Ways, Many Days

I truly feel that there are as many ways of loving as there are people in the world and as there are days in the life of those people.

--Mary S. Calderone

Doing Nothing

You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.

--Mortimer Adler

New Knowledge, New Questions

If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.

--Susanne K. Langer

Fair Play

The fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream, and don't give up. This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope, at the end of the day, connects us all, no matter how different we are.

--Marketa Irglova (Oscar acceptance speech, February 24, 2008)

Thought and Language

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

--George Orwell

Good At

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

--Bertrand Russell

Hunch

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

--Frank Capra

Sobering Thought

Thar's only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we're the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it's a mighty sobering thought.

--Walt Kelly

Dance Round

We dance round in circles and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

--Robert Frost

Substitute

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

--W. Somerset Maugham

Magnificent Hunch

In a sense, the person we marry is a stranger about whom we have a magnificent hunch.

--Anonymous minister

American Character

The United States is afflicted with new eras. Let us not think for a moment that the illusion, the aberration of the 1920s was unique. It is intimately a part of the American character.

--John Kenneth Galbraith

Hell

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists--that is why they invented hell.

--Bertrand Russell

The Meaning

The meaning of events is the sum of all the consequences.

--Todd Gitlin

Chance

Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind.

--Louis Pasteur

A Chair

A chair is only finished when someone sits in it.

--Hans J. Wegner

Change

That's the first sign that you're having an impact--you can't change the world and not have people come after you who don't want you to change the world.

--Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Enable It

As for the future, your task is not to foresee but to enable it.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Like a Pebble

Your life is like a pebble dropped into a pool of water, creating ripples endlessly. You do not know the end of a word, a thought, an action.

--White Eagle

Tragedy or Comedy

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.

--Jean de La Bruyère

Abstract Happy

Money is human happiness in the abstract.

--Arthur Schopenhauer

No Meaning

Life may have no meaning. Even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.

--Blaidd Drwg

The Laws of Morning

Whoever carries into the afternoon the laws of morning must pay for it with damage to his soul.

--Carl G. Jung

Two Things

There are two things that are important in politics. The first thing is money and I can't remember what the second one is.

--Mark Hanna (William McKinley's 1896 campaign manager)

Real Glory

Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.

--Joseph P. Thompson

Not Binary

This is not a binary choice. We are not living or dying; we are living and dying.

--Susan Madrak

Nobody Fixes

Nobody fixes problems they deny they have.

--Marshall Goldsmith

Contradictory

Credit is by definition a contradictory creature. It depends on trust and confidence and yet invites the possibility of fraud or, at the very least, grave disappointment.

--Stephen Mihm

Only Love

Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

--Martin Luther King Jr.

God's Standards

What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

--Mike Huckabee

Distrust

We have to distrust each other. It's our only defense against betrayal.

--Tennessee Williams

Wholesale, Not Retail

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

--William James

Limited in Time and Space

A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

--Albert Einstein

More Christian, Less Likely

Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral.

--Justice Antonin Scalia

True Mystery

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

--Oscar Wilde

Tools

Most folks have figured out what a blog is--a publishing tool, in the same way that a hammer is a home-building tool--and what it isn't--some radically different communication form. It doesn't matter who's using the tool. It's what they build with it.

--Peter Kafka

Real Change

Only a crisis--actual or perceived--produces real change.

--Milton Friedman

Drift Away

Sorry to drift away from the main topic, but it's almost always about money. And when it's not about money, it's about religion.

--Kgsbca

Emotion to Reason

Emotion has taught mankind to reason.

--Marquis de Vauvenargues

The Subject of Cheese

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

--G.K. Chesterton

Loyalty

Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring.

--Carl Sagan

The Great Difficulty

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

--Alexander Hamilton

The Right Moment

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

--Jean de la Bruyere

Confused

The catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented--and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

--Al Gore (Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech)

Butterfly, Quietly

Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

--Nathaniel Hawthorne

Who Doubts

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

--Rollo May

Animal Spirits

Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits--a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

--John Maynard Keynes

Clarity, Obscurity

Those who know they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

As You Are

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?

--Fanny Brice

Fragile Blue Crescent

Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

--Carl Sagan

Secrecy Is The Mark

I have taught the way without making any distinction between inner and outer teaching. For in respect of the truth there must be no such thing as the "closed fist" of the teacher, who hides some essential knowledge from the pupil. Secrecy is the mark of false doctrine.

--Digha Nikaya

Once Upon A Time

"Thou shall not" might reach the head, but it takes "Once upon a time" to reach the heart.

--Philip Pullman

Sum Total

Fame is finally only the sum total of all the misunderstandings that can gather around a new name.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Live Among Savages

All the property that is necessary to a man, for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species, is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of. But all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the public, who, by their laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the welfare of the public shall demand such disposition. He that does not like civil society on these terms, let him retire and live among savages. He can have no right to the benefits of society, who will not pay his club towards the support of it.

--Benjamin Franklin

Sequestered

He thought, How we're each sequestered in our own suffering.

--Ha Jin

The More, The Less

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.

--Richard Bach

Unreasonable

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

--George Bernard Shaw