Samanta

“Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction. Human happiness depends less on objective condition and more on our own expectations. Expectations, however, tend to adapt to conditions, including to the condition of other people. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvement in conditions might leave us as dissatisfied as before.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“Aš sėdžiu šį vakarą, rašau, ir galvoju. Tikrai pasakius, aš negalvoju. Aš ne galvojantis žmogus. Su galva toli nenueisi. Aš tik sėdžiu taip ir klausaus, kas ateina iš erdvių gilumos, bandydamas atspėti, kas yra tikrai svarbu. Ir lyg girdžiu, kad tikrumoje niekas nėra svarbu, kad viskas praeina, kad viskas yra lygiai svarbu, ir kad mes visi esam tik lašeliai pasaulio ir gyvenimo vandenyne - tik ašara ant Fatimos veido - ir kad visos mūsų galvos ir idėjos ir sistemos yra tik niekas, tik niekas. Niekas, palyginant su širdimi, švelniu geru žodžiu, švelniu palietimu, pabučiavimu, žmogaus su žmogumi susitikimu, atviru žodžių pasikeitimu, padrąsinimu ar draugyste. A, visi tie nedideli žmogiški jausmai, emocijos, padainavimai kartu, ar eini ir išgeri alaus su kuo, gal net ant peties, kaip sako, paverki gal net. A, kaip viskas tai svarbu, daug giliau ir svarbiau, negu visos politinės ir ekonominės sistemos.”
― Jonas Mekas, Laiškai iš Niekur

“People fear that being trapped inside a box, they will miss out on all the wonders of the world. As long as Neo is stuck inside the matrix, and Truman is stuck inside the TV studio, they will never visit Fiji, or Paris, or Machu Picchu. But in truth, everything you will ever experience in life is within your own body and your own mind. Breaking out of the matrix or travelling to Fiji won’t make any difference. It’s not that somewhere in your mind there is an iron chest with a big red warning sign ‘Open only in Fiji!’ and when you finally travel to the South Pacific you get to open the chest, and out come all kinds of special emotions and feelings that you can have only in Fiji. And if you never visit Fiji in your life, then you missed these special feelings for ever. No. Whatever you can feel in Fiji, you can feel anywhere in the world; even inside the matrix.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical.

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting "Vanity", thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.”
― John Berger, Ways of Seeing