Alan

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Alan.


Loading...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“The extreme inequality of our ways of life, the excess of idleness among some and the excess of toil among others, the ease of stimulating and gratifying our appetites and our senses, the over-elaborate foods of the rich, which inflame and overwhelm them with indigestion, the bad food of the poor, which they often go withotu altogether, so hat they over-eat greedily when they have the opportunity; those late nights, excesses of all kinds, immoderate transports of every passion, fatigue, exhaustion of mind, the innumerable sorrows and anxieties that people in all classes suffer, and by which the human soul is constantly tormented: these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have avoided nearly all of them if only we had adhered to the simple, unchanging and solitary way of life that nature ordained for us. ”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
Rutger Hauer, All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners

Thich Nhat Hanh
“Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon. The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent person would not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help you cross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don’t hang onto it as your property. Do not
become caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha

Natalie Díaz
“Poor Antigone. Bury the horses, instead, I tell her.
What will we eat then? she weeps, not knowing weeping isn't what it used to be, not here.
Poor, poor Antigone.”
Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“The big challenge of our time is to make sure that when our hearts break [amidst climate catastrophe] we stay open and connected and curious rather than coming up with stories to justify ourselves being violent to others that we have othered more than those closest to us.”
Jem Bendell

year in books
Drazen
4 books | 34 friends

Michael...
108 books | 110 friends

Daniel
1 book | 350 friends

Noel Ar...
1,653 books | 169 friends

Laura L...
773 books | 732 friends

Katheri...
666 books | 230 friends

Sappho Sue
4,015 books | 131 friends

Jim
Jim
5,439 books | 693 friends

More friends…


Polls voted on by Alan

Lists liked by Alan