| I wanted to include just a smattering of quotes.. Most I include because I agree with them or appreciate some quality possessed (inane, intricate, true), but I included a few because they were funny or shocking (I'm sure you'll be able to guess).
I can be weird at times...sometimes disliking quotes because people act like anything in life can be reduced to a simple quip...and other times relishing the bit of useful knowledge gleamed as I scrutize my life looking for a particular quote's niche. So anyway, make of these what you will, but at least this is one way I allow you to stick your little toe into the pool of my thoughts. Of course I collected most of these from the internet so I apologize for any inaccuracies, rather than focusing on those blunders, look at the sheer wisdom! It's blinding!
Compassion... Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it.
--Brigid Brophy Animal Rights... I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
--Leonardo Da Vinci A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.
--Leo Tolstoy About 2,000 pounds of grains must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough meat and other livestock products to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of grain eaten directly will support a person for a year. Thus, a given quantity of grain eaten directly will feed 5 times as many people as it will if it is eaten indirectly by humans in the form of livestock products....
--M.E. Ensminger, PH.D. Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more.
--Franz Kafka, while admiring fish in an aquarium Poor animals! How jealously they guard their pathetic bodies . . . that which to us is merely an evening's meal, but to them is life itself.
--T. Casey Brennan It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.
--Albert Einstein A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
--Albert Einstein --Top of Page-- Activism...Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?." Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?." But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?." And there comes a time
when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
--Martin Luther King, Jr. Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
--Plato Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
--Margaret Mead In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
--Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) To forgive and accept injustice is cowardice.
--Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.
--Ross Perot The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
--Martin Luther King Jr. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854 It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based -- or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug -- it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.
--Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World --Top of Page-- Anarchy...."It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority."
--Benjamin Franklin "Anarchy stands for the liberation of the human mind, from the domination of religion; the liberation of the human body from the domination of property; liberation from the shackles and restraints of government."
--Emma Goldman (Lithuanian born American International anarchist who conducted leftist activities in the United States from about 1890 to 1917. 1869-1940)It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment.
--Albert Einstein Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law.
--Henry David Thoreau TECHNOLOGY... Cyberspace is an illusion, virtual reality is not reality, instantaneous communication with bodies huddled over computer screens is not communication. It's funny how many people have swallowed the WWW bait. People itch to go home and log on to the WWW.
--The Raven, Anarchist Quarterly, Vol. 8, No 4 --Top of Page-- Politics...Conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear fromthem, then he is always stirring up some war or other,in order that the people may require a leader.
--Plato, 347 B.C. "If only more to today’s military personnel would
realize that they are being used by the owning
elite’s as a publicly subsidized capitalist goon squad."
-–Smedley Butler "Men have become the tools of their tools."
--Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.
--W.C. FieldsWe have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
--Stewart Udall Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.
--Winston Churchill --Top of Page-- Media..."The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
-Malcolm X (American black militant leader who articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the early 1960s, 1925-1965) "It’s hard to believe that in the greatest democracy in the world, we need legislation to prevent the government from writing and paying for the news."
--Senator John Kerry "In day-to-day commerce, television is not so much interested in the business of communications as in the business of delivering audiences to advertisers. People are the merchandise, not the shows. The shows are merely the bait."
--Les Brown "People shouldn't expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the 'fringe' media."
--Ted Koppel
"The American people deserve to know that they're not just watching the administration's spin on their local newscasts -- they're paying for it, too."
--Senator John Kerry --Top of Page-- Simplicity... Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
--Elise Boulding Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
--Confucius
Live simply that others might simply live.
--Elizabeth Seaton Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.
--Henry David Thoreau Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
--From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk --Top of Page-- Enviroment... It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was yours.
--Greenpeace advertisement, New York Times, 25 February 1990 In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops.
--Paul Brooks, The Pursuit of Wilderness, 1971 Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
--Henrik Tikkanen I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?
--Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985 The packaging for a microwavable "microwave" dinner is programmed for a shelf life of maybe six months, a cook time of two minutes and a landfill dead-time of centuries.
--David Wann, Buzzworm, November 1990 And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: "Look at this Godawful mess."
--Art Buchwald, 1970 How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life?
--Charles A. Lindbergh, Reader's Digest, November 1939 The days a man spends fishing or spends hunting should not be deducted from the time that he's on earth. In other words, if I fish today, that should be added to the amount of time I get to live. That's the way I look at recreation. That's why I'll be a big conservation, environmental President, because I plan to fish and hunt as much as I possibly can.
--George Bush, quoted in Los Angeles Times, 30 December 1988 --Top of Page-- Religion...The victory of Christianity over paganism was the greatest psychic revolution in the history of our culture. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.
--Lynn I. White, Jr., Science, 10 March 1967 I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.
--Clarence Darrow: Scopes trial, Dayton, Tennessee, July 13, 1925 Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
--Thomas Jefferson I don't spend much time thinking about whether God exists. I don't consider that a relevant question. It's unanswerable and irrelevant to my life, so I put it in the category of things I can't worry about.
--Wendy Kaminer The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.
--Abraham Lincoln Whatever is Christian is legal; whatever is not is illegal.
--David Barton, president of Wallbuilders, Inc. quoting William Penn's 1681 PA constitution Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Connecticut Baptists The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.
--Thomas Jefferson Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.
--Ulysses S. Grant Education..."I have never let my schooling interfere with my
education."
--Mark Twain (1835-1910) --Top of Page-- | 
