Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past
~ George Orwell, in 1984
Old skool truth
Oh, Bobby, Bobby...
Come you masters of war.You that build all the guns.You that build the death planes.You that build the big bombs.You that hide behind walls.You that hide behind desks.I just want you to know I can see through your masks...Let me ask you one question. Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness, do you think that it could?I think you will find, when your death takes its toll, all the money you made will never buy back your soul.
~ Bob Dylan
Yep
The more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. The less you know, the more you think you know everything. Knowledge is humbling. Ignorance is arrogant.
~ Richard Feynman
Powerful
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
~ Viktor E. Frankl
[spit take!]
This is America - we all can have different beliefs.
Some of us choose to believe in REALITY...
~ Comedienne Chrissie Mayr
Even back then, too???
A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything.
~ Aristotle
What a novel idea!
We are not afraid to trust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.
For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
~ President John F. Kennedy
True then, true now...
The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them knows anything about the subject.
~ Marcus Aurelius
Simple, but profound advice
The better the quality of your practice, the greater the return on your investment of time and energy.
~ Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo, on practicing Tai Chi
There's still time!
It's never too late to be the person you know you could have become.
~ Dan Miller, author and coach
Playing small, indeed...
There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you capable of living.
~ Nelson Mandela
Eternal truths
Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as truth. Be critical and evaluate what your believe in.
~ Aristotle
Yikes! Sad, but true...
It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four.
~ novelist and lifelong bachelor Samuel Butler wrote to his friend Eliza Savage, in 1884.
True then. True now.
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
~ Abraham Lincoln
More word salad...
I think it's very important...for us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist in our present. And to be able to contextualize it. To understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.
~ Vice President Kamala Harris
Indeed...
You must read to your children and you must hug your children and you must love your children.
Your success as a family, and our success a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house.
~ Barbara Bush
Me, too!
I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.
~ Richard Feynman
The secret is acknowledging the charlatan
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.
Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
~ Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World
Deep...don't waste your life
Listen well everyone
Great is the problem of life and death
No forever gone gone
Awake awake each one
Don't waste your life
~ old Buddhist poem (sent to a friend by teen-aged Steve Jobs)
Grim determination, indeed...
The Finnish way of life is summed up in “sisu,” a trait said to be part of the national character. The word roughly translates to “grim determination in the face of hardships", such as the country’s long winters.
Even in adversity, a Finn is expected to persevere, without complaining.
Back in the day when it wasn’t that easy to survive the winter, people had to struggle, and then it’s kind of been passed along the generations,”
Our parents were this way. Our grandparents were this way. Tough and not worrying about everything. Just living life.”
~ Matias From, age 18, finnish citizen, in a NYT article on Finnish happiness
'Gratitude' is my mantra for this week
Being sad or being not content with our life would be seen as ungrateful.
~ Clara Paasimaki, in a New York Times article on happiness
Wait. What?
There isn’t just one model of enduring happy marriage. But the usual contemporary ideal begins with sexual attraction and passionate romantic feelings and turns into a long-term mutual engagement, with physical intimacy as a big part of it.
~ The Ethicist, New York Times Magazine
He’s not wrong…
Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally.
A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something.
~ Chris Rock
Odd connection
Oscar gets caught cheating with Angela's husband.
Angela: YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MY FRIEND!
(later)
Angela: I feel so stupid. I sit next to him every day.
Dwight: You're not stupid. Jazz is stupid.
Angela (crying): Jazz IS stupid! I mean, just play the right notes!
~ in The Office
Tree trivia
Nathan: Do you guys ever want to be in charge? Be the boss? Get all the credit?
Coach Beard: You know, we used to believe that trees competed with each other for light. Suzanne Simard's field work challenged that perception, and now we now realize that the forest is a socialist community. Trees work in harmony to share the sunlight.
Nathan: Can't you just give me a straight answer? For once?
Roy Kent: I think he just did.
A good life, indeed...
(Diane, leaving to pursue a writing career)
Sam (to Diane): Hey. Have a good life.
Diane: Have a good life? That's something you say when something's over.
I'll see you in six month's, ok?
Sam: ...ok.
(Diane turns and leaves the bar)
Sam (watching the door close): Have a good life.
~ from Cheers
It's been a while
Pam, when was the last time you lived so intensely that your brain literally couldn't hold the memories in?
~ Robert California, in The Office
Flawlessly logical...
SPOCK: T'Pring. Explain.
T'PRING: Specify.
SPOCK: Why the challenge, and why you chose my captain as your champion.
T'PRING: Stonn wanted me, I wanted him.
SPOCK: I see no logic in preferring Stonn over me.
T'PRING: You have become much known among our people, Spock. Almost a legend. And as the years went by, I came to know that I did not want to be the consort of a legend. But by the laws of our people, I could only divorce you by the kal-if-fee. There was also Stonn, who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him.
If your Captain were victor, he would not want me, and so I would have Stonn. If you were victor you would free me because I had dared to challenge, and again I would have Stonn.
But if you did not free me, it would be the same. For you would be gone, and I would have your name and your property, and Stonn would still be there.
SPOCK: Logical. Flawlessly logical.
T'PRING: I am honoured.
~ From Star Trek
Makes sense to me...
There are two rules in life:
1) Never give out all the information
~ Richard Feynman
Anthony had it right
Anthony Bourdain said: "Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar.
Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two.
Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly.
Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself.
Enjoy the ride.
~ Anthony Bourdain
But you can't divide by zero...
I think that, in a relationship, you get back what you put into it.
~ Bernadette, in A Big Bang Theory
Your wish is granted!
Please, God, please, don't let me be normal!
~ Sigourney Weaver, in her high school yearbook
Life IS hard!
Courage is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway.Stupidity is the same.And that's why life is hard.
~ found on the interwebs
Office wisdom...
The fallacy is that it’s up to the steamroller.
It is up to the object whether it will be flattened,
or not.
~ Robert California, in The Office
My goal is to make it a continuous habit
Practice Forethought:
Imagine how your current actions are going to affect your future self
~ my daily mantra - nutrition, fitness, relationships, finances
Why are you looking at me??!
There's a fine line between stalking and romance...
~ Keeley, in Ted Lasso
Indeed...
Sometimes you grow together; sometimes you grow apart.
As time goes by, we realize that we just wanted different things, and now we have a choice to make. That doesn’t mean you don’t love the person.
It just means that in order for you to be authentic and truly live the life that you want to live, you have to have somebody who can meet you in the middle, right?
It’s a dance. It’s a balance."
~ Gisele Bunchen, speaking about her relationship and ultimate divorce from Tom Brady
Big Bang Wisdom
Howard (to Sheldon): What’s his problem?
Sheldon: He just broke up with his imaginary girlfriend
Howard: Been there!
Geez, Harry, tell us what you really think!
Oppenheimer, when he went into Truman's office with Dean Acheson, said to the latter, wringing his hands: "I have blood on my hands".
Truman later said to Acheson: "Never bring that fucking cretin in here agian. He didn't drop the bomb. I did. That kind of weepiness makes me sick"
~ Source: Jean-Jacques Salomon Science et Politique (1970) - History in Quotations, page 882
Yep
- If you're wrong, admit it.
- If you're confused, ask questions.
- If you're stuck, seek for help.
- If you make mistake, learn from it.
- If you learn something, teach others.
~ Richard Feynman
Imzadi, indeed…
Imzadi (pronounced em-ZAH-dee) was a Betazed word most closely translated as "beloved."It was frequently used as a term of endearment. Deanna Troi telepathically called Commander William T. Riker "imzadi" upon their first meeting on board the USS Enterprise-D. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")
~ from Star Trek, the Next Generation
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - Released 50 years ago today
Time
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells...
~ Pink Floyd (David Jon Gilmour, George Roger Waters,
Richard William Wright, Niclas Brekley Mason)
I'll start asking myself this!
What soothes you?
~ Daily question posed by Christina Caron in a NYT article How to Find More Joy in Your Day
Something to ponder...
A strange passion is moving in my head. My heart has become a bird, which searches in the sky. Every part of me goes in different directions.
Is it really so, that the one I love is everywhere?
~ Rumi
True then. True now?
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities.
~ Voltaire
Yep
Relationships are complicated.
Intense passion makes people do crazy things.
~ Gabriel, to Emily, in Emily in Paris
This...
The problem isn't that Johnny can't read.The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think.The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.
~ Thomas Sowell
Yikes!
The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of democracy, but would basically be a prison without walls, in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping.
It would essentially be a system of slavery, where, through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitude.
~ Aldous Huxley
Seems reasonable
Pundits aren't paid to be right. They're paid to be loud.The sooner everyone realizes this, the better off we'll all be.
~ found on the interwebs
One of my musical heroes...
I'm trying to find out what the top
of the mountain looks like,
and the only way to get there
is by playing every night like
it's my last chance to get this right.
~ Ron Carter (jazz bassist)
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