Quick Quotes 39: War

Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
-- Isaac Asimov

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. -- Albert Einstein

We all keep quiet and they try to convince us that what we've seen, what we've done, what we've learned about ourselves and about others, is an illusion, a passing nightmare... nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened... and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind. -- Carlos Ruiz Safon

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. -- Carl Sandburg

Quick Quotes 38: Chicago

I started collecting quotes on Chicago and realized most of them were negative or at least love/hate. Even after going out of my way to look for positive quotes, the majority of results were negative, focusing on politics, organized crime, out-of-control industry, and cold difficulty. Many historic writers and poets hated Chicago. I have yet to look for quotes on other cities but will be interested to know if this is the case with L.A. and N.Y. or if it's just a Chicago thing. These are a few of the more positive quotes about the personality of the city as I have come to understand it.

“Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.”
 -- Nelson Algren

“You know what they say about Chicago. If you don't like the weather, wait fifteen minutes.”
-- Ralph Kiner

“Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.”

--Nelson Algren

“I must confess a shameful secret: I love Chicago best in the cold.”
-- Erik Larson

In the States, it takes you a lifetime just to get from Chicago's South Side to the West Side.
-- Luther Allison

I have struck a city - a real city - and they call it Chicago... I urgently desire never to see it again.
-- Rudyard Kipling

Chicago still remains a Mecca of the Midwest - people from both coasts are kind of amazed how good life is in Chicago, and what a good culture we've got. You can have a pretty wonderful artistic life and never leave Chicago.
-- Harold Ramis

Excerpts: Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

When I found this book in my apartment building's library, I hardly noticed that the edition's design was made to look like an old book because the copy was so beaten up itself. Ironically, it's a book about a boy who finds a book in a library of old forgotten books. After taking it back to our apartment I found out it's on my list of books to read. Unfortunately, the adventures created for the boy upon finding the book have yet to reach me.

Favorite lines from the book:

"Someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever."

“Evil presupposes a moral decison, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn't stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like a stable animal, convinced that he's doing good, that he's always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around f***g up anyone he perceives to be different from himself. What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads”

Quick Quotes 37: Eccentricity

"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."
-- John Stuart Mill

“The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur. That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you anymore. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.” 

-- Hugh MacLeod

“In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.

-- John Stuart Mill

If you are Looking for hell, ask the artist where it is. If you cannot find an artist, then you are already in hell.
-- Avigdor Pawsner

Photograph by fashion photographers, the Wade Brothers. Check out their impressive portfolio.

Quick Quote 36: Antiquote Soren Kierkegaard

 "The matter is quite simple. The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly."
--Søren Kierkegaard

I saw the above quote after a Facebook friend posted it.

The bible, new testament included, has dozens of rules against women speaking in church, remarriage, certain types of haircut and meat, and many other rules that are ridiculous today. The reason Christianity thrives in America today at all is these "scheming swindlers" doing what's right instead of doing what the Bible commands. Replace the word "Bible" with "Koran" in this quote and "Christians" with "Muslim" and its easier to see how dangerous this mindset can be.

10 bible verses that approve, among other things, sexism, genocide and slavery. (Telegraph) 
13 Things The Bible Forbids Other Than Homosexuality (That You're Probably Guilty Of Doing). (Huffington Post

Here is a related quote from Robert Ingersoll that compares Catholics and Protestants. Neither Ingersoll or myself advocate either.

"The Catholics have a Pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever."

Knowledge: Robert Ingersoll Quotes

I recently finished The Best of Robert Ingersoll and was amazed throughout by his wisdom and foresight. As I read, I saved favorite quotes to include below. Many are more relevant now due to escalation than they were in the 1800s.

Ingersoll was a great humanitarian who spoke eloquently for women's rights, black's equality, and the limits of proposed prohibition (drug laws). Though we still have room to improve in these areas, people of intelligence have already been won over. Instead of saving these quotes, I chose quotes about problems that are as bad as ever-- religion, greed, and politics.

Ingersoll was greatly respected by many of the best thinkers and artists of his time like Mark Twain, Walk Whitman, and Frederick Douglass. He was friends with many of the people who disagreed with hime. He spoke about politics and current events while being a warm father and husband. Despite having died over a hundred years ago and doing little more than speak and write, he is regaining popularity as more and more of us catch up to his ideas and perspectives.

Here is another recent post about Ingersoll with more links.

Quotes and excerpts from The Best of Robert Ingersoll

Greed, Economics, and Labor
 
"How are we to settle the unequal contest between men and machines? Will the machines finally go into partnership with the laborer? Can these forces of nature be controlled for the benefit of her suffering children? Will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workers become intelligent enough to be the owners of the machines? Will theses giants, these titans, shorten or lengthen the hours of labor? Will they give leisure to the industrious or will they make the rich richer and the poor poorer?"

"All men engaged in manufacturing are neither good nor generous. Many of them get work for as little as possible, and sell its product for all they can get. It is impossible to adopt a policy that will not by such people be abused. Many of them would like to see the working man toil for twelve hours or fourteen or sixteen in each day. Many of them wonder why they need sleep or food, and are perfectly astonished when they ask for pay."

Quick Quotes 35: Cyborgs

Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and art)ficial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.

--Donna J. Haraway

By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.
-- Donna J. Haraway

My body is an electronic virgin. I incorporate no silicon chips, no retinal or cochlear implants, no pacemaker. I don't even wear glasses (though I do wear clothes). But I am slowly becoming more and more a Cyborg. So are you. Pretty soon, and still without the need for wires, surgery or bodily alterations, we shall be kin to the Terminator, to Eve 8, to Cable...just fill in your favorite fictional Cyborg. Perhaps we already are. For we shall be Cyborgs not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires, but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and non-biological circuitry.
--Andy Clark

I'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess.

--Hye Yeon Nam

**More quotes about non-humans on Reluctant Chauffeur.**
**More great quotes on Reluctant Chauffeur.**

Quick Quotes 34: Vampires

The vampire craze is kind of fascinating. We're interested in the idea of immorality and I think we're drawn to people or creatures who can give in to those base impulses and just be bad and not feel bad about it.
-- Benjamin Walker

I know not everyone starts out reading high literature. If you read enough you might be drawn to some other things, so maybe those vampire books are what they call 'gateway books.' I just coined that term. I don't know if there's a thing called 'gateway books.'
-- Josh Radnor


Becoming a vampire is forever. You don't get to change your mind about it later. For me, I think that's one of the big drawbacks with anything that's permanent. How do you know how you're going to feel in five years or 10 years? Even with a tattoo.
-- Stephenie Meyer

**More quotes about non-humans on Reluctant Chauffeur.**
**More great quotes on Reluctant Chauffeur.**

Quick Quotes 33: Isaac Asimov and robots

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.
-- Isaac Asimov

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
-- Isaac Asimov

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
-- Isaac Asimov

**More quotes about non-humans on Reluctant Chauffeur.**

**More great quotes on Reluctant Chauffeur.**

Quick Quotes 32: Monsters

Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets. -- Jacques Derrida

People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is... Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways... There are far, far worse things to be than a monster. -- Jim Butcher

Stop trying to throw logic at nightmares. Sometimes the monsters are real... Sometimes they're real and the only way to defeat them is to be the bigger monster. --  Laurell K. Hamilton

“CONTROL MYSELF?!! I'm a MONSTER! Monsters don't control themselves! That's the whole IDEA!”-- Jeff Smith

Quick Quotes 31: Openness to Experience

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer
-- William S. Burroughs

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
-- Albert Camus

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
-- James Boswell

The brain's calculations do not require our conscious effort, only our attention and our openness to let the information through. Although the brain absorbs universes of information, little is admitted into normal consciousness.
-- Marilyn Ferguson

Quick Quotes 30: On getting old

 
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
-- Mark Twain

Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old.
-- Rowan Williams

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I'm not complaining,... Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven't done what they wanted with their lives.
-- Martha Gellhorn

Quick Quotes 29: Pessimism or reality?

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
― John Steinbeck

“Greed, envy, sloth, pride and gluttony: these are not vices anymore. No, these are marketing tools. Lust is our way of life. Envy is just a nudge towards another sale. Even in our relationships we consume each other, each of us looking for what we can get out of the other. Our appetites are often satisfied at the expense of those around us. In a dog-eat-dog world we lose part of our humanity.”
― Jon Foreman

We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.
― Stephen Hawking

Quick Quotes 28: Antiquote on aging

"Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many."
-Unknown Source

I agree that one shouldn't regret growing old and changing one's mindset to view aging as a privilege can accomplish this if nothing else works, but it's a cheap low-level wisdom.

It's similar to an employee who justifies staying at a miserable jobs because "I should be grateful I have a job" or an abused spouse who doesn't fight for improvement or leave because "it's worse elsewhere".

There will always be someone less privileges or in worse condition to look to for motivation. Even if you're the most deprived human in the world (if you're reading this you aren't), you can look to history or create fictional alternatives. If anyone can use this trick, then quotes like this aren't saying anything besides, "be grateful at all times".

Let's get to the heart of it then.

The value of your life is intrinsic and shouldn't be derived from the misfortune of others. If you're having to be glad you're not dead to appreciate your life, you're missing something. Life isn't a commodity that increases in value as others fall out unless you're putting it on a market.

Knowledge: Neil deGrasse Tyson on religion, intelligent design, and Bill O'Reilly

Three videos, three quotes, and a biography.

Religion's impact on progress:

Quick Quotes 27: P. J. O'Rourke

I'm familiar with O'Rourke from NPR's comedy game show Wait... Wait... Don't Tell Me!, but know little more about him. His quotes are addictive:

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power"

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

"You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going."
 
"Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."

"Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there."

"America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so

Quick Quotes 26: Antiquote Mae West

“There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out.”
-- Mae West

Outdated quote that is frequently shared because it sounds vaguely racy. The quote can be taken multiple ways, but each way now lacks relevance. Does she mean that girls tend to be predestined towards being bad from the start? If so, that's unlikely and sexist without proof. Is she representing the unforgiving attitudes of the public towards good girls gone wrong? Perhaps, but  again, how is this different from attitude of the public regarding anyone?

The "baddest girls" are those who aren't afraid  to be themselves, who work towards what they want, not deceptive cowards who have to be "found out". We've evolved past  the repressive culture that was present when Mae West said this.  Move on...

Quick Quotes 25: Art

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
--Charles Horton Cooley

Art is the proper task of life.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

Art is not a thing; it is a way.
--Elbert Hubbard

Quick Quotes 24: Allen Ginsberg and Greed

Are Americans reduced to regaining liberty by violence? I'm convinced there's another way: organized chanting, shamanistic magic, ghost-dance rituals, massive nakedness, distribution of flowers."
--Allen Ginsberg

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
--P. J. O'Rourke

Try to break the money-property-power men of their habits and they'll act like junkies-- lie, steal, scream, live in your house, cut down forests, raze hills, sell the ground from under unborn feet."
--Allen Ginsberg

Quick Quotes 23: Antiquote William Osler

We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.
-- William Osler

Osler doesn't know why we're here and anyone's contributions and improvements to the world are ultimately relative. Life is all about the person experiencing it no matter how altruistic they may be. I'd change this quote to: We're not here to add to life but to live it. The best way to get the most from life is by using our life to help others.
A poem by Mary Oliver:
 
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.