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“John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Whatever he may seem to us, he is yet a servant of the Law; that is, he belongs to the Law and as such is set beyond human judgment.”
― Franz Kafka , The Trial

“The rest, is silence.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“One must merge one form of darkness with another, and then wait for the darkness to be tinged with the rosiness of the fateful dawn to come”
― Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow

“To exist is to feel; our feeling is undoubtedly earlier than our intelligence, and we had feelings before we had ideas.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile

“I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

“What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.”
― William Shakespeare

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."
It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.
Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself.”
― Freidrich Nietzsche