Transcript
Seneca Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth. Bertrand Piccard I deeply believe that the worst thing in life is not to fail: it is not to try.
Arthur Schopenhaur Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. Benjamin Franklin If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. James A Froude The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness. William Hazlitt
Genius is a native to the soil where it grows - is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun; and is not a hothouse plant or an exotic
If you think you can win, you can. Faith is necessary to victory
As is our confidence, so is our capacity
A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts Prejudice is the child of ignorance. Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater
Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken
Prejudice is never easy unless it can pass itself off for reason
Andre Breton It is living and ceasing to live which are imaginary solutions. Existence is everywhere. Roman Payne It’s not that we have to quite life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla, anthills, poppies, literature, candles and subway trains…if only one could leave this life slowly.
Andrew Marvell (From ‘To His Coy Mistress’) “And your quaint honour turn to dust. And into ashes all my lust: The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace” Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good. Ross Macdonald If you withdraw your spirit deep into yourself and out of sight, it couldn’t be completely destroyed. But it might go blind in the internal darkness. (Sleeping Beauty Ch.. 14) Thomas Jefferson Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Earnest Hemingway The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. Donald Trump I try to learn from the past, but plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is. Murray N. Rothbard (Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy)
Businessmen or manufacturers can either be genuine free enterprisers or statists; they can either make their way on the free market or seek special government favors and privileges. They choose according to their individual preferences and values. But bankers are inherently inclined toward statism.
Michael Connelly (from The Lincoln Lawyer, Page 27) There is nothing about the law which I cherished anymore. The law school notions about virtues of the adversarial system, of the system’s checks and balances, of the search for truth, had long since been eroded like the faces of statues from other civilizations. The law was not about truth, it was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation. W Somerset Maugham It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. Margaret Thatcher Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
John Hope Dissatisfaction with possession and achievement is one of the requisites to further achievement.
Ernest Hemingway For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
Alan Ginsberg (beat generation poet) Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture. John Mackay (Forward to ‘Fiat money inflation in France’ by Andrew Dickson White) Legislatures are as powerless to abrogate moral and economic laws as they are to abrogate physical laws. They cannot convert wrong into right nor divorce effect from cause James Turk (Talking with Hugo Salinas Price at Goldmoney.com) Proper Money or Sound Money is a constant form of measurement. It is some weight of precious metal. Bill Bonner
The problem, if I may simplify, is that you can never know what anything is worth unless you allow people to buy and sell freely. And if you can't know what something is worth, you can't make sensible investment decisions. You end up allocating capital to the wrong places, which leads inevitably to massive bust-ups.
Justin Raimondo (The Banksters and American Foreign Policy) "Left" and "right" mean nothing in the current context: the real division is between government-privileged plutocrats and the rest of us. What you have to ask yourself is this: which side are you on?
Edmund Burke The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts ... the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
James Payne A discoverer is persona non grata in academia. Leaving academia cost me dearly in income and status, but for my own intellectual development and emotional well-being it was the smartest thing I ever did. Robert D. Crassweller, (Quoted in Perón and the Enigmas of Argentina.) Don’t you see you poor fool, that whoever’s got the most dough is right? That honor’s sold for cash, and morals for pennies? That no truth can withstand two bucks? Rilke If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; Blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its’ riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty. George Santayana Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be. Religions are the great fairy-tales of the conscience. (The Philosophy of Santayana.)
Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment. Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience. The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it. Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better. Anon If you have an honest mind and are prepared to look at the truth, it can be understood. Every person who thinks ‘ There is a force for good in this universe and I want to join it’ is good, no matter what their religion, even if they claim no religion or belief in God, they are good and they have religion. I am not banging a drum for any religion, it doesn’t matter what religion or no religion you have, but what you know or have been taught about God and the Universe is now, at this brief time you have, your only channel to your personal God. You may have rejected what you have been taught or acquired, but the set of beliefs and practices you did acquire have become your only way to or language to communicate to your unique God. This ‘religion’ may not
be perfect in your eyes, but its’ all you’ve got. Don’t throw this skill away and leave yourself destitute and alone in this cold universe. Use what you have to communicate to your God whatever language you have, be it Catholic, Hindu, Baptist, Sunni, Episcopalian, Jewish, Lutheran, Shi-it, whatever. Use it with all its’ faults, you are probably far too old to learn a new language. In order to love someone you must believe you see into his or her heart. A mother does this from the moment of birth of her child, a lover after desire. Those who take pleasure in seeing others happy are in themselves fulfilled. The most powerful word in any language is ‘why’. In societies where a person’s right to question is accepted the use of this word leads to understanding and abundance. Where free use of the word is frowned upon, sacred dogma cannot be questioned, individual right is suppressed. Western freedom of conscience and speech has been paid for in the blood of protestant martyrs. Society benefited as much by this religious revolution as it did by all the other advances in knowledge up to that point combined; it gave the individual the right to challenge dogma and examine the world without prejudice.
Abraham Lincoln You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
When I do good, I feel good; When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion. When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.
Albert Camus I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.
Jacques Casanova de Seingalt (Memoirs) A prejudiced mind cannot reason well. (The young countess) Love is only a feeling of curiosity more or less intense, grafted upon the inclination placed in us by nature that the species may be preserved. (Ch 7) Cheating is a crime, but honest cunning may be considered as a species of prudence. (Ch 8) Oh! Charming simplicity! Offspring of wit and ignorance, thy charm is delightful, and thou alone hast the privilege of saying anything without ever giving offence. But how unpleasant thou art when thou
art not natural! And thou art the masterpiece of art when thou art imitated with perfection! (Ch 19) No doubt a time will come when society, more enlightened and therefore more reasonable. Will acknowledge that noble feelings, honour and heroism can be found in every condition of life as easily as in a class the blood of which is not always exempt from the taint of a misalliance. A government wishing to establish on a firm basis the prosperity of trade must give commerce full liberty, only being careful to prevent the frauds which private interests, often wrongly understood, might invent at the expense of public and general interests. (Ch:28) However wonderful it may appear, silliness is the daughter of wit. (Ch:28) A poor man will seek in vain for true compassion at the rich man’s doors; what he receives is as a sacrifice to ostentation, and not true benevolence. (ch 71 memoirs) The pleasure which follows desire is the best, for it is the most acute. (said by Marchioness Chigi regarding Horace – Ch 132) By recollecting the pleasures formerly, I renew them. I enjoy them a second time, while I laugh at the remembrance of troubles now past, and which I no longer feel. Martin Samuel( Times writer on football) England, and the English, are frequently painted as parochial and xenophobic, yet it is those beyond these shores, most specifically Blatter and Platini, the Uefa president, who are most likely to fall into intellectual shorthand, viewing all outsiders as one, and as a threat. Libby Purves (Times writer on exhumation of the remains of Cardinal Newman)
Oh, enough! Even as a genuinely devout Catholic schoolchild I hated this stuff, and I hate it more now. The Church's weird horror of fleshly things (unmarried or contracepted sex, gay love) is nastily counterpointed by its affection for cadavers. I know the theology, I accept that there is a distinction between voodoo paganism and the more complex ideas formulated by St Jerome and Thomas Aquinas. They say that relics are not worshipped in themselves but are an “aid to veneration” of people whose bodies “were the temples and instruments of the Holy Spirit”. Fine. Save a well-thumbed prayerbook if you will, or a lock of hair. But these creepy exhumations feed the superstitious magical instincts of religion, not the spiritual and humane ones. Ambrose Bierce Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math. Spike Milligan (Puckoon Ch. 5, regarding the ugliness of Belfast) safe in its bureaucratic cocoon, we had a new vandalism of authority, power without conscience or taste Bertrand Russell War doesn't determine who's right - only who's left. Ivan Turgenev A poet must be a psychologist; but a secret one. He should know and feel the roots of phenomena but must only present the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
Carl Sagan Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. Socrates I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it. The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.
David Hawkins (Power vs Force) There are no causes within the observable world…..the observable world is a world of effects. V Prabhakan Fear is the outcome of weakness, a coward’s friend, an enemy of firmness. Fear of death is the cause of all human fears. One who wins the fear of death wins himself. He is the one who wins the freedom from his mental prison.
Buddha If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned
Through zeal, knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal, knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow.
To keep the body in good health is a duty, for otherwise we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom, and keep our mind strong and clear. Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals.
Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten. Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.
In separateness lies the world's great misery, in compassion lies the world's true strength.
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
The greatest gift is to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest.
The greatest prayer is patience.
A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting.
Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.
Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.
Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little
Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in
your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Being deeply learned and skilled, being well trained and using well spoken words; This is good luck
You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together.
There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, and there is no torrent like greed.
Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.
Being generous, just helping one's relatives and being blameless in one's actions; this is the best good luck.
Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
The Buddha’s do but tell the way; it is for you to swelter at the task.
What is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering and sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering.
Henry Miller Imagination is the voice of daring, If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Nothing is at last sacred, but the integrity of your own mind. Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches. The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen Minette Marrin (Times 8 June 08)
…..the obstinate folly of generations of teachers and theorists of education. Obsessed with equality and social engineering, they refused to recognise the simple truth that children and students vary. Children are born with different abilities, into different environments, which exaggerate those differences: ignoring those differences is no way to help them all, nor is clumsy social engineering. Imposing one kind of school, one class and one syllabus on everyone, in an attempt to iron out those differences, has been
tragically wrong. Encouraging everyone to think they can get a university degree is unforgivably discouraging to the majority of young people who can’t and don’t. The result has been a school system that suits almost nobody and public exams that mean almost nothing…… quality has been sacrificed to the pursuit of equality. It is shameful. Leo Gomes While modern technology has given people powerful new communication tools, it apparently can do nothing to alter the fact that many people have nothing useful to say Johann Wolfgang von Goethe He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his own home. William Blake A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent Napoleon History is a set of lies agreed upon. Albert Camus A man’s work is nothing but a slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. Stephane Mallarme
That virgin, vital, beautiful day: today. Thomas Paine That government is best which governs least. Abigail Van Buren If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.
Loneliness is the ultimate poverty. Aeschylus Boldness of speech never became the weak. (The suppliants) When one is willing and eager, the gods join in. Tacitus (regarding Agricola) Let it be clear to those who insist on admiring disobedience that even under bad emperors men can be great, and that a decent regard for authority, if backed by industry and energy, can reach the peak of distinction. It was no secret that on the reading of Agricola’s will, which named Domitian as co-heir with his ‘good wife’ and his ‘loving daughter’, the Emporer was much pleased, taking it as a sincere compliment. His mind was so blinded and vitiated by incessant flattery that he did not
realize that no good father would leave property to any emperor except a bad one. Aristotle Justice and equity are therefore the same thing, and both are good, though equity is the better. Character is habitual action To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence. Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal. A friend is a second self. A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
The gods too are fond of a joke.
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
The secret to humor is surprise.
The soul never thinks without a picture.
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival
The vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
We make war that we may live in peace.
Well begun is half done.
Wit is educated insolence.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
We must as second best...take the least of the evils. He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
George Bernard Shaw When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
Saul Bellow
A man is only as good as what he loves. Simone de Beauvoir
Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.
The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them.
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself. George Washington Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder. Winston Churchill Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. Morgen Jahnke The growing awareness of radium’s toxicity made it seem less and less suited to general use, and when Marie Curie died in 1934, it was speculated that her exposure to radiation played a part in her death. Scientists now know that radium damages bone marrow particularly, because the body treats it as calcium, depositing it in the bones and providing it easy access to the marrow. Samuel Johnson Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed. People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. Ovid The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture. Francis Bacon Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
W. Somerset Maugham
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent. Art is merely the refuge, which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely. Daniel Finkelstein on February 12, 2008 I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has heard of Lina Joy? Since Rowan Williams made his extraordinary intervention I have been in correspondence with Malaysians with direct experience of living under a parallel system of state and Sharia. There have been numerous disputes concerning the correct courts to be used in different cases. One of the most famous controversies concerns Lina Joy. Actually that's only her name now, her Christian name. Her birth name is Azlina Jailani, and she was born a Muslim. In 1981 Lina Joy became a Christian and she is trying to have herself declared as such on her identity card, her MyKad. One reason is that she wishes to marry her Christian boyfriend and it is illegal for her to do this while she remains classified as a Muslim. However her attempts to have her conversion recognised have failed.
The civil courts, and finally the highest court - the Federal court have ruled that she can't decide on her religion for herself. She has to to be given approval by the Islamic courts. Which, of course, is not forthcoming. As the decision was announced last May, outside the federal courts a crowd chanted Allahu Akhbar. This is not the only type of case, by any means, where the joint jurisdiction poses fundamental problems of human rights. Another type concerns what is known as body snatching. The conversion of non-Muslims near death without the knowledge of their families has caused fierce rows. One reason, according to my correspondents, is that conversion changes the destination of any inheritance with Islamic courts deciding and inherited assets flowing only to Muslim relatives or the community. Divorce battles raise similar questions. Conversion by the father in the run-up to a divorce gives him crucial advantages - he gets custody, turns the children into Muslims and prevents his wife using the civil courts. Running a dual court system produces extraordinary practical difficulties and the opportunity for human rights abuses. Just ask the campaigners in Malaysia. Ken Urquhart (commenting on David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology) We could agree that Miscavige himself is in a Condition of Below Condition, the formula for which we do not have. I suggest one, neither seriously nor in jest, but in the spirit of "If the cap fits, wear it": Go away. Go very, very, very far away. Go further away. Figure out how to become a member of the human race. Start coming back step-by-step on your own. Don’t ever consider lying to yourself again. Permit yourself to go through the horrors, on a very slow gradient, of actually being truly in session with an auditor. Repeat from #1 until #7 produces honest-to-goodness case gain and honest return to the human race. Re-program.
Ultimately, what David Miscavige does is largely up to him. Ayn Rand Man’s motive power is his moral code. (Atlas Shrugged P445) A prisoner brought to trial can defend himself only if there is an objective principle of justice recognized by his judges, a principle upholding his rights, which they may not violate and which he can invoke. (Atlas Shrugged P477) He (a man) will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, a woman whose surrender permits him to experience – or to fake – a sense of self-esteem. (Atlas Shrugged P490) There is no way to disarm a man except through guilt. Through that which he himself has accepted as guilt. If he has ever stolen a dime, you can impose on him the punishment intended for a bank robber and he will take it. (Atlas Shrugged P548) Those parasites who assume a sickening air of moral selfrighteousness whenever they utter the standard bromides about their concern for the welfare of others. (Atlas Shrugged P659) He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects the deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience – or to fake- a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer – because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement . (Atlas Shrugged P490) Litigants obey the verdict of a tribunal solely on the premise that there is an objective rule of conduct, which they both accept. . (Atlas Shrugged P743)
If there are degrees of damnation, the scientist who places his mind in the services of brute force is the longest-range murderer on earth. . (Atlas Shrugged P745) There is no conflict, and no call to sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another – if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is will not bring value to that which isn’t. The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer’s wealth, the artist who envies a rivals higher talent – they’re all wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. . (Atlas Shrugged P798) If my love of truth is left as my only possession, then the greater the loss behind me, the greater the pride I may take in the price I have paid for that love. …My pride and my power of vision were all I owned when I started – and whatever I achieved, was achieved by means of them. Both are greater now. . (Atlas Shrugged P860) He knew that they held him through nothing but his reluctance to hurt them, his fear of their pain. . (Atlas Shrugged P971) You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifices, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster, In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all of those evils which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self- esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. . (Atlas Shrugged P1010) Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. . (Atlas Shrugged P1012) To think is an act of choice. (Atlas Shrugged P1012)
There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe, Existence or non-existence (Atlas Shrugged P1012) A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in ones thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. (Atlas Shrugged P1016) Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth. (Atlas Shrugged P1017) The alleged short cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind (Atlas Shrugged P1018) The bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices (Atlas Shrugged P1020) Man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit ones purpose, of remaking the earth in the image of ones values (Atlas Shrugged P1020) That which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If a man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will he is neither good nor evil: a robot is amoral. To hold, as a man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold a man’s nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. (Atlas Shrugged P1025) You had known the independence of a rational consciousness facing an open universe. That is the paradise you have lost, which you seek – which is yours for the taking. (Atlas Shrugged P1058)
Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. (Atlas Shrugged P1058) Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality – not the degree of your intelligence. (Atlas Shrugged P1059) The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. (Atlas Shrugged P1064) All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal. (Atlas Shrugged P1068) The removal of a threat is not a payment, the negation of a negative is not a reward…the offer not to murder me is not a value. (Atlas Shrugged P1102 If you had blood poisoning, would you adjust to it or act to change it? (Atlas Shrugged P1103) In learning, we draw an abstract from concrete objects and events. In creating we make our own concrete objects and events out of an abstraction. (Notes dates May 4, 1946) Scott Adams (Dilbert Cartoonist) Have you ever noticed that crazy people don’t think they’re crazy? I’m talking about the run-of-the-mill wackos who populate your day. They think they’re “quirky” or “high maintenance” or ‘perfectionists,” but they rarely realize they are nuts. This got me thinking, what if I’m nuts and I don’t know? I started a list of all the things I do that could be construed as crazy by an unkind observer. Number one on the list is ”creating a list of all the things I do that could be construed as crazy by an unknown observer” Number two was wondering if writing “number one” is redundant, since “one” is obviously a number. Number three or as I
call it now, just “three,” was overanalyzing everything. Soon I had over forty items that were about the list itself. I decided those don’t count. http://www.fmxconnect.com (Afternoon Gold Fix – February 25, 2011) While exchanges herald the benefits of electronic trading there is one thing wrong with it. Electronic trading minimizes the information leakage associated with using brokers, for sure, but it is also allows oligarchic organizations to anonymously manage price movement while hiding behind digital displays. We won’t use the word manipulate, in part because of our libertarian bent, but it’s getting ridiculous. Where there used to be 50 5-lot thieves on the floor now there are five Too-Big-To-Fail banks with infinite fed-sponsored balance sheets doing whatever they please. The idiot locals on the floor, fragmented as they were, served to keep the big banks in check because there was transparency of price and to a large extent, the players were known. This doesn’t exist anymore and we don’t see an end to it. Instead of thinning the forest for the trees, technology, regulatory and economic factors have killed the saplings and destroyed market diversity. This translates to a narrow and deep liquidity pool in trading venues; god forbid if one of them fails. (My underlining).