[quote]"What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could 'be like gods' - could set upon their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, ρrοsτιτυτιοn, classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy." - C.S. Lewis[/quote] [quote]"If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment." - C.S. Lewis[/quote] [quote]"We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity - like perfect charity - will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Nevermind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection." - C.S. Lewis[/quote] [quote]“For of course we do not want to know our Friend's affairs at all. Friendship, unlike Eros, is uninquisitive. You become a man's Friend without knowing or caring whether he is married or single or how he earns his living. What have all these ‘unconcerning things, matters of fact’ to do with the real question, Do you see the same truth? In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one cares twopence about any one else's family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history. Of course you will get to know about most of these in the end. But casually. They will come out bit by bit, to furnish an illustration or an analogy, to serve as pegs for an anecdote; never for their own sake. That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities… ...When I spoke of Friends as side by side or shoulder to shoulder I was pointing a necessary contrast between their posture and that of the lovers whom we picture face to face. Beyond that contrast I do not want the image pressed. The common quest or vision which unites Friends does not absorb them in such a way that they remain ignorant or oblivious of one another. On the contrary it is the very medium in which their mutual love and knowledge exist. One knows nobody so well as one's ‘fellow’. Every step of the common journey tests his metal; and the tests are tests we fully understand because we are undergoing them ourselves. Hence, as he rings true time after time, our reliance, our respect and our admiration blossom into an Appreciative Love of a singularly robust and well-informed kind. If, at the outset, we had attended more to him and less to the thing our Friendship is ‘about’, we should not have come to know or love him so well. You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.” - C.S. Lewis[/quote] [quote]"One of the thousand objections to the sin of pride lies precisely in this, that self-consciousness of necessity destroys self-revelation. A man who thinks a great deal about himself will try to be many-sided, attempt a theatrical excellence at all points, will try to be an encyclopaedia of culture, and his own real personality will be lost in that false universalism. Thinking about himself will lead to trying to be the universe; trying to be the universe will lead to ceasing to be anything. If, on the other hand, a man is sensible enough to think only about the universe; he will think about it in his own individual way. He will keep virgin the secret of God; he will see the grass as no other man can see it, and look at a sun that no man has ever known." - G.K. Chesterton[/quote] [quote]"But charity means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all." "Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible." "It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them." G.K. Chesterton[/quote] [quote]"The truth is that the scientific civilization in which Mr. McCabe believes has one rather particular defect; it is perpetually tending to destroy that democracy or power of the ordinary man in which Mr. McCabe also believes. Science means specialism, and specialism means oligarchy. If you once establish the habit of trusting particular men to produce particular results in physics or astronomy, you leave the door open for the equally natural demand that you should trust particular men to do particular things in government and the coercing of men. If, you feel it to be reasonable that one beetle should be the only study of one man, and that one man the only student of that one beetle, it is surely a very harmless consequence to go on to say that politics should be the only study of one man, and that one man the only student of politics. As I have pointed out elsewhere in this book, the expert is more aristocratic than the aristocrat, because the aristocrat is only the man who lives well, while the expert is the man who knows better. But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization we see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular function. Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If scientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest." - G.K. Chesterton[/quote] [quote]"Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to be perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. Such, it seemed, was the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on NOT DOING SOMETHING which you could at any moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should not do. Now, the point here is that to ME this did not seem unjust. If the miller's third son said to the fairy, 'Explain why I must not stand on my head in the fairy palace,' the other might fairly reply, 'Well, if it comes to that, explain the fairy palace.' If Cinderella says, 'How is it that I must leave the ball at twelve?' her godmother might answer, 'How is it that you are going there till twelve?' If I leave a man in my will ten talking elephants and a hundred winged horses, he cannot complain if the conditions partake of the slight eccentricity of the gift. He must not look a winged horse in the mouth. And it seemed to me that existence was itself so very eccentric a legacy that I could not complain of not understanding the limitations of the vision when I did not understand the vision they limited. The frame was no stranger than the picture. The veto might well be as wild as the vision; it might be as startling as the sun, as elusive as the waters, as fantastic and terrible as the towering trees." - G.K. Chesterton[/quote] [quote]'Doubtless there is an older and better hero-worship than this. But the old hero was a being who, like Achilles, was more human than humanity itself. Nietzsche's Superman is cold and friendless. Achilles is so foolishly fond of his friend that he slaughters armies in the agony of his bereavement. Mr. Shaw's sad Caesar says in his desolate pride, "He who has never hoped can never despair." The Man-God of old answers from his awful hill, "Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more. And when Nietszche says, "A new commandment I give to you, 'be hard,'" he is really saying, "A new commandment I give to you, 'be dead.'" Sensibility is the definition of life.' - G.K. Chesterton[/quote]

[quote][i]And that, Anakin knew, was where it got fun.[/i][/quote]

"Rationalizations are the ad hoc smoke that billows up from emotional fires. You do not treat rationalizations as if they were reasoned, principled arguments any more than you would put out a fire by standing around waving at the smoke. You put out a fire by puting out the fire. But if that is not enough, and the fires keep coming back. Then you put out the arsonist. " ----Drew Westren "The Political Brain.' "One of the greatest conceits that humans are prone to is the ability to convince ourselves that actions that are taken for selfish reasons are somehow in the service of some higher principle." ---Unknown. "Stop trying to shop for milk in a hardware store." ----Al-Anon. "In order to save a drowning man, that man must first admit that he is drowning. If he doesn't, if you try to save him, he will simply drag you under with him, and you will both drown. Sometimes one must simply row away from those who refuse to be helped and leave them to their fate." ---Unknow.

“Not all who wander are lost.” —poem from The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”—Gandalf, The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien “I am [in your world].’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.’”—from the Chronicles of Narnia, by CS Lewis “Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’" —Isaiah 6:8, NASB [i]May or may not update haha.[/i]

“And now you add 1 cup of flour”

"But as the gate swung wider and the sorcery of drug and dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So, happier than I had ever dared hoped to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of crystal oblivion from which the daemon Life had called me for one brief and desolate hour." [spoiler]-H.P. Lovecraft. > Ex Oblivione[/spoiler] More a short story than a book. But I always loved it. Such a good story of a man who grew tired of waking life and instead chose to chase dream through suicide.

Let's do war.

“If you’re trying to scare me, I would recommend a spider in a suit” “Why a spider in a suit? Why not just a spider?” “Where did he get the suit? How did he use the buttons? Why does he feel the need to be so dressed for the occasion?”

THERE IS A SIMILARITY, if I may be permitted an excursion into tenuous metaphor, between the feel of a chilly breeze and the feel of a knife’s blade, as either is laid across the back of the neck. I can call up memories of both, if I work at it. The chilly breeze is invariably going to be the more pleasant memory. For instance . . .

One student asks: Why should I live? Steven Pinker answers: In the very act of asking that question, you are seeking reasons for your convictions, and so you are committed to reason as the means to discover and justify what is important to you. And there are so many reasons to live! As a sentient being, you have the potential to flourish. You can refine your faculty of reason itself by learning and debating. You can seek explanations of the natural world through science, and insight into the human condition through the arts and humanities. You can make the most of your capacity for pleasure and satisfaction, which allowed your ancestors to thrive and thereby allowed you to exist. You can appreciate the beauty and richness of the natural and cultural world. As the heir to billions of years of life perpetuating itself, you can perpetuate life in turn. You have been endowed with a sense of sympathy—the ability to like, love, respect, help, and show kindness—and you can enjoy the gift of mutual benevolence with friends, family, and colleagues. And because reason tells you that none of this is particular to you, you have the responsibility to provide to others what you expect for yourself. You can foster the welfare of other sentient beings by enhancing life, health, knowledge, freedom, abundance, safety, beauty, and peace. History shows that when we sympathize with others and apply our ingenuity to improving the human condition, we can make progress in doing so, and you can help to continue that progress. Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

1984 by George Orwell has some of my favorites: [quote]If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.[/quote] [quote]Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.[/quote] [quote]Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.[/quote] [quote]To die hating them, that was freedom.[/quote]

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee -book of Ezekiel 25:17 [spoiler]"NO I said it!!" Whhhat? "Say what again!.... I dare you, I double dare you Mother F!#ker" -Sam Jackson[/spoiler]

"Being abandoned to my enemies, abandoned by one for whom I once had considerable affection and respect, was like being murdered…and surviving." - Darth Caedus

I must not fear Fear is the mind killer Fear is the little-death that vrings total obliteration I will face my fear I will permit it to pass over me and through me And when it is gone i will turn the inner eye to see its path Where fear has gone there will be nothing And only i will remain Or Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination

“It’s the deep breath before the plunge” -Beragond from The Lord of the Rings Return of the King. “If more people valued home over gold, the world would be a merrier place”-Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit.

Lewis Carroll dump - If everybody minded their own business, the world would go round a deal faster than it does. - Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. - But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” - Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where–” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.” - I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then. - It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. [spoiler]Some are full conversations because enjoyed them more together than just the quote bit[/spoiler]

My favorite genre of book is "Wodehouse describing the pains of the prewar British idle rich" [quote]A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.[/quote] [quote]Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.[/quote] [quote]He groaned slightly and winced, like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch.[/quote] [quote]Then he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won’t forget him in the general distribution.[/quote] [quote]“There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, ‘Do trousers matter?'” “The mood will pass, sir.”[/quote]