quotes

[inavalan]

Jan 18, 2021 22:01:16 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Jan 18, 2021 19:10:03 GMT -5 inavalan said:

I found (googled) this interpretation:

Anything that a fool has to say will only last temporarily, while something that a wise man says lasts forever. It says "fools proclaim" because dumb people condescend to others, while a "wise man forgets" because he doesn't care about popularity.

Selfishness has an audience of one; selflessness has an audience beyond number.

Are you saying that that was what MLK meant in that quote? Or, that is what you're saying?

To me, yours doesn't seem to say the same thing. I don't even think that that is true; that is more of a wish than what it can be observed.

[zendancer]

Jan 18, 2021 23:28:46 GMT -5 inavalan said:

Jan 18, 2021 22:01:16 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Selfishness has an audience of one; selflessness has an audience beyond number.

Are you saying that that was what MLK meant in that quote? Or, that is what you're saying?

To me, yours doesn't seem to say the same thing. I don't even think that that is true; that is more of a wish than what it can be observed.

When I read the quote, I thought that MLK was referring to Jesus, or people like Jesus, whose main interest is helping and/or caring for others. And yes, it can be observed. The most effective leaders that I've ever met were people who encouraged other people to do their best and had no interest in taking personal credit for whatever success was attained. I was pointing to the same thing in a different way.

[laughter]

Jan 18, 2021 17:26:56 GMT -5 inavalan said:

Jan 18, 2021 14:32:55 GMT -5 laughter said:

"To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."

-- Aldous Huxley

Do you mind sharing the context of this quote? Who's he alluding to?

Hey invalan .. I think the quote sort of stands on it's own as a sardonic comment about the phenomenon of destructive outrage self-justified by a sense of righteous indignation.

As far as specifics go, Huxley lived through the world wars, so he had plenty of opportunity to observe this dynamic in action. I'd guess that different people can see this in different groups, one opposite the other, as it's happening, as one man's destructive outrage is another's justified critique, objection or protest.

The way I see it, any observation of this nature is the most powerful when turned inward in order to take responsibility for our internal state, in attempted self-honesty. So, that evokes another famous quote.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main…. Any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Any therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

-- John Donne

[laughter]

Jan 18, 2021 19:26:15 GMT -5 inavalan said:

Jan 18, 2021 17:26:56 GMT -5 inavalan said:

Do you mind sharing the context of this quote? Who's he alluding to?

This is what I found (googled):

He burst onto the literary scene in 1921 with his novel “Crome Yellow,” a satirical novel that takes place at a manor house party. It introduced the world to Huxley’s acid brand of cynicism. “The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone,” Huxley wrote in the novel. “To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”

Good find, thanks. He didn't even need to see what happened 20 years later to come to his conclusion.

[maxdprophet]

“Ultimately there is only one human sadness, that of not being a saint.”

Leon Bloy

[inavalan]

Jan 18, 2021 14:32:55 GMT -5 laughter said:

"To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats."

-- Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace : 1958 (Full) 28:12

Intelligent, sensible, visionary, ... great man!

[maxdprophet]

Via the grapevine, a paraphrase of a translation of Rumi: "True lovers never meet."

[stardustpilgrim]

Feb 22, 2021 11:37:13 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Via the grapevine, a paraphrase of a translation of Rumi: "True lovers never meet."

Hey max, good to hear from you. I will offer a quote. I recognized its appropriateness immediately when your new icon and words arrived, but didn't comment then. I don't know if it was deliberate on your part, but I would like to think so. So, just so you'll know I didn't miss the reference:

Dear and kind Grandfather, tell me then something about those...how? ... I forget...yes, about those 'slugs'.
What? About what slugs? asked Beelzebub, not understanding the boy's question.
Don't you remember, Grandfather, that a little while ago, when you spoke about the three-centered beings breeding on the various planets of that solar system where you existed for such a long time, you happened to say that on one planet-I forget how you called it-that on that planet exist three-centered beings who, on the whole, are like us, but whose skin is a little slimier than ours.
Ah! laughed Beelzebub. You are surely asking about those beings who breed on the planet Earth and who call themselves 'men'.
Yes, Grandfather, yes, just that. Tell me about those 'men-beings,' in a little more detail. I should like to know more about them, concluded Hassein.
Then Beelzebub said: About them I could tell you a great deal, for I often visited that planet and existed among them for a long time and even made friends with many of those terrestrial three-brained beings.
Indeed, you will find it very interesting to know more about these beings, for they are very peculiar.
There are many things among them which you would not see among any other beings of any other planet of our universe.
I know them very well, because their arising, their further development, and their existence during many, many centuries, by their time calculation, having occurred before my eyes.
And not only their own arising occurred before my eyes, but even the accomplished formation of the planet itself on which they arise and exist.
When we first arrived on that solar system and settled on the planet Mars nothing yet existed on that planet Earth, which had not even time to cool off completely after its concentration.
From the very beginning, this same planet has been the cause of many serious troubles to our ENDLESSNESS.
If you wish I will tell you first of all about the events of general cosmic character connected with this planet, which were the cause of the said troubles of our ENDLESSNESS.
Yes, my dear Grandfather, said Hassein, tell me first about this. It will surely be quite interesting as everything you relate.
....
I shall begin by saying how glad I am that you happen to be a long way away from those three-centered beings whom you called by a word so 'insulting to their dignity' and that they are not likely to ever hear about it.
Do you know, you poor thing, you small boy not yet aware of himself, what they would do to you, particularly the contemporary beings there, if they should hear what you called them?
...In any case, I advise you that, whenever you start anything new, you should always bless Fate and beseech her mercy, that she would always be on guard and prevent the beings of the planet Earth from ever suspecting that you, my beloved and only grandson, dared to call them 'slugs'.
You must know that during the time of my observations of them from the planet Mars and during the periods of my existence among them, I studied the psyche of these strange three-brained beings very thoroughly, and so I already know very well what they would do to anybody who dared to give them such a nickname. :-)
from All and Everything, First Series: Under the title of An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man, or, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson.

[laughter]

"That is known as the fourth quarter: neither inward-turned nor outward-turned consciousness, nor the two together; not an indifferentiated mass of consciousness; neither knowing, nor unknowing; invisible, ineffable, intangible, devoid of characteristics, inconceivable, indefinable, its sole essence being the consciousness of its own Self; the coming to rest of all relative existence; utterly quiet; peaceful; blissful: without a second: this is the Ātman, the Self; this is to be realised"

-- The Mandukya Upanishad at (7)

[maxdprophet]

Feb 22, 2021 14:21:29 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Feb 22, 2021 11:37:13 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Via the grapevine, a paraphrase of a translation of Rumi: "True lovers never meet."

Hey max, good to hear from you. I will offer a quote. I recognized its appropriateness immediately when your new icon and words arrived, but didn't comment then. I don't know if it was deliberate on your part, but I would like to think so. So, just so you'll know I didn't miss the reference:

Far be it from me to deny the delicious flavors of thought.

[zazeniac]

Mar 22, 2021 5:31:32 GMT -5 @whynot said:

Mar 21, 2021 13:50:58 GMT -5 @whynot said:

no one has ever said it better than Howard Beale


"All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

my life is the most important thing in the world

it's the only thing that matters


?

"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

[Deleted]

Apr 30, 2021 14:05:05 GMT -5 @whynot said:

“Among other things, [...]” ~ J.D. Salinger

What's that from? I mean, which book? Or was it an article or something else?

[laughter]

"heh heh .. 'based' is only an 'I' away from 'biased' .. heh heh' - laffy

[inavalan]

Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine said:

"It is more important to know what kind of person has a disease than to know what kind of disease a person has." 

"Afflictions suffered by the body, the soul sees with shut eyes." 

[eputkonen]

Questioner is Tao-hsin and Answerer is Seng-ts'an (Third Zen Patriarch)...

Q: What is the method of liberation?
A: Who binds you?
Q: No one binds me.
A: Why then should you seek liberation?