I am prepared to grovel. To humiliate myself abjectly, because, in the circumstances, silence would be indefensible. So those of you who are willing: let’s pick our parts, put on these discarded costumes and speak our second-hand lines in this sad second-hand play. But let’s not forget that the stakes we’re playing for are huge. Our fatigue and our shame could mean the end of us. The end of our children and our children’s children. Of everything we love. We have to reach within ourselves and find the strength to think. To fight.
Permalink
and forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair
— kahlil gibran
Permalink
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. And on a quiet day, if you really listen, you can hear her breathing.
— Arundhati Roy
Permalink
The painter is standing a little back from his canvas. He is glancing at his model; perhaps he is considering whether to add some finishing touch, though it is also possible that the first stroke has not yet been made. The arm holding the brush is bent to the left, towards the palette; it is motionless, for an instant, between canvas and paints. The skilled hand is suspended in mid-air, arrested in rapt attention on the painter’s gaze; and the gaze, in return, waits upon the arrested gesture. Between the fine point of the brush and the steely gaze, the scene is about to yield up its volume.
— The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences (via mfoucault)
Permalink
The person who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind with the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason…
— Bertrand Russell
Permalink
Folks, it’s time to evolve. That’s why we’re troubled. You know why our institutions are failing us, the church, the state, everything’s failing? It’s because, um – they’re no longer relevant. We’re supposed to keep evolving. Evolution did not end with us growing opposable thumbs. You do know that, right?
— Bill Hicks
(via mirroredstairways)
Permalink
I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know what will be the end. My field is the history of thought. Man is a thinking being.
— Truth, Power, Self : An Interview with Michel Foucault (via mfoucault)
Permalink
I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it.
— -Alexander Woollcott
Permalink
