You can look the other way once, and it's no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that's all you're doing; compromising, because that's the way you think things are done. You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren't, they weren't bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised... Once.

I've gathered many quotes for DI. This is another batch of my favorite quotes, gathered from a wide variety of sources: Libertarian: "(noun) One who believes that oppression is best handled by the Private Sector." (seen on Facebook) "Maybe this world is another planet’s hell." Aldous Huxley "Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays." Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) "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", first line “We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think.” ― Rod Serling "If Satan is God’s enemy . . . why does he punish those who disobey God?" - From Facebook “My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain.” ― Charles Chaplin "The point of public relations slogans like “Support our troops” is that they don’t mean anything… That’s the whole point of good propaganda.You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against, and everybody’s going to be for.Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn’t mean anything.Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That’s the one you’re not allowed to talk about." - Noam Chomsky "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted." - Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva, US science fiction novelist (1920 - 1986) "Deregulation: Yes that's a licence for Corporate Monopoly Rule aided and abetted by Sociopaths in key positions: Government, Law, Security both Police and Military, the Media and in Business." - Anon comment on Glenn Greenwald’s website "If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.” - Mark Twain. "Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength." - Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983) "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain. “The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.” - Ernest Hemingway The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. - Patrick Henry

I periodically publish quotes I have collected. Here is the latest batch (and here is my entire collection). Not particular topic this time: "A boat is safe in the harbor. But this is not the purpose of a boat." Paulo Coelho “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” ― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It America’s “culture of death”: “a culture that embraces a soulless free-market idolatry in which the value of everything, including human beings, is determined by the bottom line. ... It is a culture of death that prevails on Wall Street, K-Street, Hollywood, and our ever expanding Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.” Rich Broderick, journalist who writes for the online Twin Cities Daily Planet "I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs." Frederick Douglass "What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood." Aldous Huxley "Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this-that you are dreadfully like other people." James Russell Lowell (1819 - 1891) “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire. Godwins’ Law - the idea that as an online discussion grows longer the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. anon “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” Pablo Picasso “Education isn’t something you can finish.” Isaac Asimov If a thing isn't worth saying, you sing it. Pierre Beaumarchais (1732 - 1799) “Don't think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.” Voltaire "If the only thing keeping you from being a horrible person is your religion, you are already a horrible person." Someecards (on Facebook) "The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution." Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

"Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them." Albert Einstein This quote appeals me more than the platitude to think outside the box. It challenges us to reframe problems, which sometimes means there's actually no problem at all (or the problem might be much worse than we thought). I often think of this quote in terms of our seemingly intractable national problems. Conservation can substantially alleviate the "need" to spew CO2 into the air, but conservation is not part of the Chevron-driven national dialogue. Good schools and decriminalization of drugs are a LOT cheaper than prisons, but politicians fail to connect the dots to those other levels. Ubiquitous applications of this quote, but we so often get trapped on our own cozy level, cozy because that's what we are used to, and we are so used to it that it seems to be stone foundation rather than something to vigorously question.

I found this quote by the Dalai Lama on FB: