Mahatma Gandhi

Be the change you want.

Heraclitus

Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same.

Said Shirazi, "Who Owns the World?"

The short answer to my question is that the rich own the world, by definition. The rich have more of everything; that’s what it means to be rich.

The long answer is that God is dead and numbers rule. The answer to every question is not a satisfying name but some mystifying numbers, not yes or no but x billion and y percent. The richest 5% of Americans now own almost 60% of the country’s wealth, while the lower three quintiles comprising 60% of the population have 4%, .3%, and at the bottom nothing or only debt. In the shrinking middle are people who need this score and that amount of tuition to get into this school so they can make that income and live in that high-scoring zip code. Once you believe this, you’re lost like me.

Said Shirazi, "Two Ideas of Freedom"

There is a long liberal tradition of changing terms rather than changing policies. This is something like changing your diaper rather than learning to stop soiling yourself. Liberal rhetoric is partly a way of avoiding reality and partly of offering empty phrases as a substitute for change. In its more academic form it also serves the purpose of excluding ordinary people from the discussion, paralyzing them with confusion or intimidating them into silence.

R. M. Rilke, The Duino Elegies

Isn't it time that we lovingly free ourselves
From the beloved, and stand it, though we tremble,
As the arrow stands the bowstring, tense to be more than itself?
For abiding is nowhere.

J. Prévert, "Déjuner du Matin"

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Avec le petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler.
Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fair des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder.

Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

Homer, The Odyssey

My home and friends lie far. My life is pain.

Alan Paton

Nothing is ever quite, except for fools.

D. H. Lawrence

To be content in bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be together in happy stillness.

Euripedes

Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.

Dorothy Parker

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad --
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.