Here we are with the first of our monthly collections of quotes for 2023 – and we have a bumper bundle this month. So in no particular order I offer you …
If the general public doesn’t understand science and technology, then who is making all of the decisions about science and technology that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in, some members of Congress? There are only a handful who have any background in science at all, and some of them don’t even want to know about it.
[Carl Sagan]
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. lt’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
[Carl Sagan]
That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.
[Haruki Murakami]
I’m sick of people saying it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. I think about the end of capitalism every day. Today I imagined what it would be like to live in a community that valued me for being present rather than “useful” or “productive”. In that world, I think I would spend a lot more time taking care of plants. I would tell stories when I felt like it, instead of on deadline. What do you imagine?
[Annalee Newitz]
This stupid star has been following us all week, we’re still half a day’s ride from Bethlehem … As I type this, we’re being followed by three strange men trying to sell us gold, frankincense, and myrrh – whatever that is. On top of that, Mary’s contractions have started, and she’s chosen tonight of all nights to tell me the kid isn’t mine.
[From https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/joseph-of-nazareth-has-had-it-with-hotelscom]
The problem is we are not eating food any more, we are eating food-like products.
[Dr Alejandro Junger]
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.
[Isaac Asimov]
Sometimes magick is as simple as burning a single candle with good intentions behind it.
[unknown]
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, we must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity.
[Marie Curie]
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall […]
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it […]
The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world.
[Charles Dickens, Bleak House]
Who can doubt the futuristic brilliance of Sunak and co? They’ve given us driverless government.
[Marina Hyde; Guardian; 23/12/2022; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/23/rishi-sunak-government-prime-minister]
We see what we see, not necessarily what is there, and we write what we know, not necessarily what we see.
[Annie Proulx, Fen, Bog and Swamp]
Arrrrrrgh! The feral dinos sing.
Gory to our newborn thing!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild –
Sweet mercy, please, I have a child!
Urgh and ewgh and arrrrrgh and arrrrr!
GMO has gone too far!
Arrrrrrgh! The feral dinos sing –
Gory to our newborn thing!
[Timothy Train]
There will come a time when fascism would take over this great nation of ours and destroy the peaceful and economic ties we enjoy with our neighbours in Europe. They will come armed with their silver tongues and promising the earth. Be extremely vigilant.
[Winston Churchill]
Bats can hear shapes. Plants can eat light. Bees can dance maps. We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all.
[unknown]
You wouldn’t want to be minding them poet fellows. They’re a dangerous clique be the best of times.
[Brendan Behan]
The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.
[Mahatma Gandhi]
We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation – to make a point – than to further the cause of truth.
[Edgar Alan Poe]
I see the onslaught of NY diet/fitness advice has begun. Let me tell you that painting nudes from life has taught me that all bodies are inherently beautiful. They really, really are. Don’t let anything or anyone convince you otherwise. Your body is wonderful, just the way it is. We know this as children but something external & insidious creeps in & makes us doubt it. But looking at nudes of all genders/sizes/shapes/abilities in life class & trying to render the beauty of skin/flesh/light/gravity has helped me remember how beautiful *we all* are.
[Haiku, @19syllables on Twitter]
Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.
[Mahatma Gandhi]
Those who are emotionally intelligent understand that just because you address something that bothers you doesn’t mean you’re trying to argue. Were just simply communicating. Disagreements don’t have to end with arguments or fights.
[unknown]
Einstein said that if quantum mechanics were correct then the world would be crazy. Einstein was right – the world is crazy.
[Daniel M Greenberger]
Don’t force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.
[Plato]
I keep six honest serving men
(they taught me all I know);
their names are What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who.
[Rudyard Kipling]
I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
[Richard Feynman]
I call God to witness that as a private person I have done nothing unbeseeming an honest man, nor, as I bear the place of a public man, have I done anything unworthy of my place.
[Francis Walsingham]
What if we were naked?
Just an everyday normal thing?
Would the world fall apart,
If bodies were free?
Would our eyes burn in fear,
Should less fabric reveal,
Bodies are near?
[James, @JEGography on Twitter; What If We Were Naked?]
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
[George Orwell]
