Autumn > Autumn's Quotes

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.”
― Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response.
To beg for the blessing of “authority” is to accept that the choice is the master’s alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.”
― Larken Rose

“Emergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.”
― Friedrich Hayek

“What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.”
― Thomas Sowell

“Every type of political power presupposes some particular form of human slavery, for the maintenance of which it is called into being. Just as outwardly, that is, in relation to other states the state has to create certain artificial antagonisms in order to justify its existence, so also internally the cleavage of society into castes, ranks and classes is an essential condition of its continuance. The development of the Bolshevist bureaucracy in Russia under the alleged dictatorship of the proletariat (which has never been anything but the dictatorship of a small clique over the proletariat and the whole Russian people) is merely a new instance of an old historical experience which has repeated itself countless times. This new ruling class, which to-day is rapidly growing into a new aristocracy, is set apart from the great masses of the Russian peasants and workers just as clearly as are the privileged castes and classes in other countries from the mass of the people. And this situation becomes still more unbearable when a despotic state denies to the lower classes the right to complain of existing conditions, so that any protest is made at the risk of their lives.

But even a far greater degree of economic equality than that which exists in Russia would be no guarantee against political and social oppression. Economic equality alone is not social liberation. It is precisely this which all the schools of authoritarian Socialism have never understood. In the prison, in the cloister, or in the barracks one finds a fairly high degree of economic equality, as all the inmates are provided with the same dwelling, the same food, the same uniform, and the same tasks. The ancient Inca state in Peru and the Jesuit state in Paraguay had brought equal economic provision for every inhabitant to a fixed system, but in spite of this the vilest despotism prevailed there, and the human being was merely the automaton of a higher will on whose decisions he had not the slightest influence. It was not without reason that Proudhon saw in a "Socialism" without freedom the worst form of slavery. The urge for social justice can only develop properly and be effective when it grows out of man's sense of freedom and responsibility, and is based upon it. In other words, Socialism will be free or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this fact lies the genuine and profound justification of Anarchism. ”
― Rudolf Rocker, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism

“People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”
― Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“You are what you believe yourself to be.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello

“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.”
― Neil Gaiman

“What, I wondered, did he mean by “society”? The plural of human beings? Where was the substance of this thing called “society”? I had spent my whole life thinkng that society must certainly be something powerful, harsh and severe, but to hear Horiki talk made the words “Don’t you mean yourself?” come to the tip of my tongue. But I held the words back, reluctant to anger him.
‘Society won’t stand for it.’
‘It’s not society. You’re the one who won’t stand for it - right?’
‘If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it’
‘It’s not society. It’s you, isn’t it?’
‘Before you know it, you’ll be ostracized by society.’
‘It’s not society. You’re going to do the ostracizing, aren’t you?’
Words, words of every kind went flitting through my head. “Know thy particular fearsomeness, thy knavery, cunning and witchcraft!” What I said, however, as I wiped the perspiration from my face with a handkerchief was merely, “You’ve put me in a cold sweat!” I smiled.
From then on, however, I came to hold, almost as a philosophical conviction, the belief: What is society but an individual?”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“As a girl, I used to believe that I could see and taste the air. I was TOLD that was impossible and forgot how to do so.”
― Silver RavenWolf, A Witch's Notebook: Lessons in Witchcraft

“I've often thought that there isn't any "I" at all; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.”
― Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend

“...What you're calling evil, is part of human nature.”
― Nikolas Schreck

“Are you mad? Something needs to be done. I cannot just go for a walk like every other day. Our world is falling apart.”
― Tricia Copeland, To Be a Fae Queen

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.”
― Lao Tzu

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“Anytime you feel love for anything, be it stone, tree, lover, or child, you are touched by the Goddess's magick...”
― Cate Tiernan, Book of Shadows

“There is no greater power than the one others do not believe you possess.”
― Luis Marques, Book of Orion - Liber Aeternus

“One cannot shape the world without being reshaped in the process. Each gain of power requires its own sacrifice.”
― Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic

“Some of the best advice you will ever hear will come from the forest.”
― Dacha Avelin, Embracing Your Inner Witch: The Maidens Guide to Old World Witchcraft

“There's a tree," Starflight said, jumping to his feet. "In the forest."
"No way," Glory said. "A tree in the forest?”
― Tui T. Sutherland, The Lost Heir

“He [Riptide] sighed. "I said, 'What are you doing all the way out here?' and you said, 'Hey, sparkling teeth, I totally love three of your claws but not the others, and I wish your nose was a herrig so I could eat it, and also your wings sound like sharks snoring.'"
Tsunami burst out laughing.”
― Tui T. Sutherland, The Lost Heir

“I really think I'd be better at, like, advanced napping techniques.”
― Tui T. Sutherland, The Hidden Kingdom

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire

“Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.”
― Steve Martin