Inspirational Quotes

The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power.

--Dignitatis Humanae

I have come to tell you that you are free. Many ages ago, My consciousness left man, that he might develop himself. I return to find this development approaching completion, but hindered by fear and by misunderstanding.

--Eris, Goddess of Confusion

Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

--C.S. Lewis

Randy hadn't the faintest idea what these people thought of him and what he had done, but he could sense right away that, essentially that was not the issue because even if they thought he had done something evil, they at least had a framework, a sort of procedure manual, for dealing with transgressions. To translate it into UNIX system administration terms (Randy's fundamental metaphor for just about everything), the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Wheras people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack. They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.

--Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

The people, then and now, are helpless to arrive a a godly ideal. Their religious, political, and cultural resources, assembled from various icons, heroes, saints, ancestors, warriors, kings, or priests, fall short. How can virtuous people deal with each other? How can they construct prohuman social, economic, religious, and political systems? Can they imagine a prohuman military system, or is this term itself an oxymoron?

--Daniel Berrigan, Isaiah, Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears

M2: Everything is true.
GP: Even false things?
M2: Even false things are true.
GP: How can that be?
M2: I don't know man, I didn't do it.

--The Principia Discordia

A faith; this is a necessity for man. Woe to him who believes nothing.

--Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Neal's Proverb: If I forgot my pants, there's no point in worrying about it.

--Equesa Ludicerentibus

Never trust a politican who talks about Jesus.

--Reverend Jack

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.

--C.S. Lewis

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

--Oscar Wilde

There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already.

--Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy page 32