Joseph > Joseph's Quotes

“There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained with the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.”
― Theodore John Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”
― Jose Marti

“Somehow it is not the smile of a human being: it utterly lacks substance, all of what we might call the "heaviness of blood" or perhaps the "solidity of human life"—it has not even a bird's weight. It is merely a blank sheet of paper, light as a feather, and it is smiling.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
― Socrates

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Socrates

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

“Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
― Buddha

“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.”
― Buddha

“Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything else you do.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version

“When you see a person who has been given more than you in money and beauty, then look to those who have been given less.”
― Anonymous

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
― Nicolas Chamfort

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“He - and if there is a God, I am convinced he is a he, because no woman could or would ever fuck things up this badly.”
― George Carlin

“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."

(Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2003)”
― Edward W. Said

“Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.”
― Edward W. Said, Orientalism

“And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning 'That path leads ever down into stagnation.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Love yields to business. If you seek a way out of love, be busy; then you'll be safe.
Remedia Amoris,1. 143”
― Remedia Amoris

“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
― Ovid

“Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.”
― Ovid

“I am the poet of the poor, because I was poor when I loved; since I could not give gifts, I gave words.”
― Ovid

“Happy are those who dare courageously to defend what they love.”
― Ovid

“I have long since learned, as a measure of elementary hygiene, to be on guard when anyone quotes Pascal.”
― José Ortega y Gasset