Dennis J.

“It's not uncommon for the Old Soul to experience some measure of depression, apathy or existential lethargy when it comes to living everyday life. After all, if physical existence loses its star-spangled gleam, and everyday affairs lose their burning importance, what is the point of living a dull life?”
― Aletheia Luna, Old Souls: The Sages and Mystics of Our World

“All this is the more maddening, as Edward Shils has pointed out, in a populistic culture which has always set a premium on government by the common man and through the common judgement and which believes deeply in the sacred character of publicity. Here the politician expresses what a large part of the public feels. The citizen cannot cease to need or to be at the mercy of experts, but he can achieve a kind of revenge by ridiculing the wild-eyed professor, the irresponsible brain truster, or the mad scientist, and by applauding the politicians as the pursue the subversive teacher, the suspect scientist, or the allegedly treacherous foreign-policy adviser. There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. Filled with obscure and ill-directed grievances and frustrations, with elaborate hallucinations about secrets and conspiracies, groups of malcontents have found scapegoats at various times in Masons or abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, or Jews, Negroes, or immigrants, the liquor interests or the international bankers. In the succession of scapegoats chosen by the followers of this tradition of Know-Nothingism, the intelligentsia have at last in our time found a place.”
― Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

“Racists will always call you a racist when you identify their racism. To love yourself now - is a form of racism. We are the only people who are criticized for loving ourselves. and white people think when you love yourself you hate them. No, when I love myself they become irrelevant to me.”
― John Henrik Clarke

“Amongst some of the Old Soul's greatest achievements in life include the ability to live with inner peace, even amid the troubles of life. As all is passing, the Old Soul understands the importance of non-attachment to physical and immaterial things.”
― Aletheia Luna, Old Souls: The Sages and Mystics of Our World