Loren Eiseley

there is but one way into the future: the technological way

Mao Tse Tung

Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different schools in science should contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and science should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields. They should not be settled in an over-simple manner.

Albert Einstein

common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18

Jean-Paul Sartre, preface to "The Condemned of the Earth" by Franz Fanon

Es lo malo con la servidumbre: cuando se domestica a un miembro de nuestra especie, se disminuye su rendimiento y, por poco que se le de; un hombre de corral acaba por costar más de lo que rinde. Por esa razón los colonos se ven obligados a dejar a medias la domesticación: el resultado, ni hombre ni bestia, es el indígena. Golpeado, subalimentado, enfermo, temeroso, pero sólo hasta cierto punto, tiene siempre, ya sea amarillo, negro o blanco, los mismos rasgos de carácter: es perezoso, taimado y ladrón, vive de cualquier cosa y sólo conoce la fuerza.

(It's the bad thing about servitude: when you domesticate a member of our species, you reduce his productivity and, however little you give him; a domesticated man ends up costing more than he produces. For this reason the colonists are obliged to leave the domestication incomplete: the result, neither man nor beast, is the native. Beaten, underfed, sick, frightened, but only to a certain point, always has, whether he is yellow, black or white, the same character traits: he is lazy, cunning and a thief, he lives from whatever thing and only understands force.)

Virgil, "The Aeneid"

Said Nisus then:
"Do gods this ardor in our minds instil
O Euryalus, or does fierce longing grow
To be to each his god? ..."

Henry Kissinger, 1972

When the voice of controversy has stilled, all that matters will be whether what was done made a difference, whether it marked an episode or an epoch. We are living through one of the most difficult periods of our time. Some say we are divided over Vietnam; others blame other domestic discord. But I believe the cause of our anguish is deeper. Throughout our history we believed that effort was its own reward. Partly because so much has been achieved here in America, we have tended to suppose that every problem must have a solution and that good intentions should somehow guarantee good results. Utopia was seen not as a dream, but as our logical destination if we only traveled the right road. Our generation is the first to find that the road is endless, that in traveling it we will find not Utopia but ourselves. The realization of our essential loneliness accounts for so much of the frustration and rage of our time.

Virgil, "The Aeneid"

Aeneas: Them 'mid welling tears
Departing I addressed: "Live happily,
You whose own risks are now already passed;
We, from one fate are summoned to the next;
For you repose is won; no seas' expanse
Have you to plough, nor have you need to seek
Ausonian fields that ever back recede."

"I Ching" or "Book of Changes"

Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in social intercourse. In this way one assumes the right attitude toward God and man and achieves something.

Benjamin Disraeli

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.

Anne Frank, "The Diary of a Young Girl"

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if; every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: "A quiet conscience makes one strong!"