Category: Recommended Reading/Films/Sites
African proverbs
I’ve often posted on quotes, but a friend recently sent me a link to a big collection of African proverbs. Lots of wisdom in these words, and here are some of my favorites:
To get lost is to learn the way. ~ African proverb
He who learns, teaches. ~ Ethiopian proverb
You always learn a lot more when you lose than when you win. ~ African proverb
You learn how to cut down trees by cutting them down. ~ Bateke proverb
Instruction in youth is like engraving in stone. ~Moroccan Proverb
Traveling is learning. ~Kenyan Proverb
Peace is costly but it is worth the expense. ~Kenyan proverb
War has no eyes ~ Swahili saying
There can be no peace without understanding. ~Senegalese proverb
If you can’t resolve your problems in peace, you can’t solve war. ~ Somalian proverb
He who thinks he is leading and has no one following him is only taking a walk. ~ Malawian proverb
A large chair does not make a king. ~ Sudanese proverb
Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable. ~ Bondei proverb
It takes a village to raise a child. ~ African proverb
Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won’t eat you. ~ African proverb
Hold a true friend with both hands. ~ African proverb
Show me your friend and I will show you your character. ~ African proverb
Bad friends will prevent you from having good friends. ~ Gabon proverb
Make some money but don’t let money make you. ~ Tanzania
The rich are always complaining. ~ Zulu
Money can’t talk, yet it can make lies look true. ~ South Africa
What you give you get, ten times over. ~ Yoruba
The surface of the water is beautiful, but it is no good to sleep on. ~Ghanaian Proverb
You are beautiful, but learn to work, for you cannot eat your beauty. ~Congolese Proverb
Three things cause sorrow to flee; water, green trees, and a beautiful face. ~Moroccan Proverb
A beautiful thing is never perfect. ~Egyptian Proverb
Youth is beauty, even in cattle. ~Egyptian Proverb
Invisible war victims
Glenn Greenwald writes the following as part of his article on an upcoming film titled “Dirty Wars.”
The most propagandistic aspect of the US War on Terror has been, and remains, that its victims are rendered invisible and voiceless. They are almost never named by newspapers. They and their surviving family members are virtually never heard from on television. The Bush and Obama DOJs have collaborated with federal judges to ensure that even those who everyone admits are completely innocent have no access to American courts and thus no means of having their stories heard or their rights vindicated. Radical secrecy theories and escalating attacks on whistleblowers push these victims further into the dark. It is the ultimate tactic of Othering: concealing their humanity, enabling their dehumanization, by simply relegating them to nonexistence.
The following excerpt is from the website of “Dirty Wars.”
As [Investigative Reporter] Scahill digs deeper into the activities of JSOC, he is pulled into a world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress. In military jargon, JSOC teams “find, fix, and finish” their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the “kill list,” including U.S. citizens. Drawn into the stories and lives of the people he meets along the way, Scahill is forced to confront the painful consequences of a war spinning out of control, as well as his own role as a journalist.
Another batch: my favorite quotes
Here’s another batch of quotes I have been collecting. It’s a constantly growing collection, supplemented by my personal review of anything I happen to read. I realize that this collection is getting quite large. Here’s the latest batch:
“Live and let live,” writes a clear-headed Austrian officer,
“is no device for an army. Contempt for one’s own comrades, for
the troops of the enemy, and, above all, fierce contempt for
one’s own person, are what war demands of every one. Far better
is it for an army to be too savage, too cruel, too barbarous,
than to possess too much sentimentality and human reasonableness.”
- William James. From The Varieties of Religious Experience.
“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.”
― Ivan Illich
“If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people, including me, would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”
-Hunter Thompson
“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”
― William Wilberforce
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!”
-Hunter Thompson
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
H. P. Lovecraft (1890 – 1937), “The Call of Cthulhu”,
“Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.”
Evan Esar (1899 – 1995)
[More . . . ]
Consumerism quote
You never know where your life style will be challenged. Here’s a quote I spotted on a parked car a few months ago:
William James, on the effect of repetition
–
Daniel Kahneman discusses the “mere exposure effect” in his 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Humans tend to like the things to which they are repeatedly exposed.
More of my favorite quotes
I’ve been collecting quotes for years. Here are many of my favorites. See below for my most recent favorites:
“I want an avowed atheist in the White House. When time comes to push that button, I want whoever’s making the decision to understand that once it’s pushed, it’s over. Finito. They’re not gonna have lunch with Jesus. Won’t be deflowering 72 virgins on the great shag carpet of eternity, or reincarnated as a cow. I want someone making that decision who believes life on this Earth isn’t just a dress rehearsal for something better — but the only shot we get.”
― Quentin R. Bufogle
“There was a footpath leading across the fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.”
—Bertrand Russell
“Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles.”
-Mark Twain
“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn’t require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
“No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say, “You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.” He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion.”
- Bertrand Russell in “The Doctrine of Free Will”
“Historically, the most terrible things – war, genocide, and slavery – have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”
Howard Zinn
“It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.”
― Aldous Huxley, Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience
“To refrain from an act is no less an act than to commit one.”
—Sir Charles Sherrington
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
Dorothy Parker, (attributed)
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To change one’s life start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.”
William James.
New collection of quotes
I collect lots of quotes, periodically posting them here at DI (follow this link for many dozens of quote postings). Here is my latest offering:
“The tragedy of life is not death ..but what we let die inside of us while we live.”
Norman Cousins
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.”
Albert Einstein
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings…”
Lao Tzu
“I want an avowed atheist in the White House. When time comes to push that button, I want whoever’s making the decision to understand that once it’s pushed, it’s over. Finito. They’re not gonna have lunch with Jesus. Won’t be deflowering 72 virgins on the great shag carpet of eternity, or reincarnated as a cow. I want someone making that decision who believes life on this Earth isn’t just a dress rehearsal for something better — but the only shot we get.”
― Quentin R. Bufogle
“There was a footpath leading across the fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.”
—Bertrand Russell
“Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles.”
-Mark Twain
“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn’t require religion at all.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
“No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say, “You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.” He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion.”
- Bertrand Russell in “The Doctrine of Free Will”
“Historically, the most terrible things – war, genocide, and slavery – have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.”
Howard Zinn
“It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.”
― Aldous Huxley, Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience
“To refrain from an act is no less an act than to commit one.”
—Sir Charles Sherrington
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
Dorothy Parker, (attributed)
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To change one’s life start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.”
William James.
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
― Thomas Paine, The Crisis
“I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.”
- Audrey Hepburn
“Once consequentialism is properly formulated, it is hard to see how anyone, Kant included, could fail to be a consequentialist.”
—R. M. Hare
“My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
—Thomas Paine
“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.”
—Philip Zimbardo
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
Mark Twain
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
Frederick Douglass
“War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”
~Bertrand Russell
“Whoever doesn’t flare up at someone who’s angry wins a battle hard to win.”
-The Buddha
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell
“Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.”
Howard Zinn
“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
“There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth’s wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more. But there is also the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience: the growing revulsion against endless wars, the insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination. There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color.”
Howard Zinn (in the 1999 version of A People’s History of the United States):
“Iowa is so flat you can watch your dog run away for three days.”
Quote from Reddit:
“The highest compliment one can give a writer is not to say that one wholeheartedly agrees with his observations, but that he provoked — really, forced — difficult thinking about consequential matters and internal questioning of one’s own assumptions, often without quick or clear resolution.”
Glenn Greenwald
Creating a film in two days
The 48-Hour Film Project is a challenge to make a 4 to 7 minute film in only 48 hours, including writing the script, shooting the scenes and all editing the film, including the creation of a musical score. Very ambitious and intense. The
competing teams each submit films which are viewed and graded by judges. In 2011, a friend of mine, Jon Abrahams, was part of the team that won not only the local competition, but the international competition, with a film called “In Captivity.” His team’s film was featured in this Youtube introduction to the 2012 competition. Also featured here is an interview of Jon. This looks like a blast–I’d love to try it someday.
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