#ability

To reverse the effects of civilization would destroy the dreams of a lot of people. There's no way around it. We can talk all we want about sustainability, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter that these people's dreams are based on, embedded in, intertwined with, and formed by an inherently destructive economic and social system. Their dreams are still their dreams. What right do I -- or does anyone else -- have to destroy them. At the same time, what right do they have to destroy the world? ↗

— Derrick Jensen

#ecology #economics #environment #sustainability #dreams

It is our task, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true ↗

— Freeman John Dyson

#unpredictability #dreams

you simply couldn't guard yourself against dreams. they attacked late at night when a person was at the most vulnerable. ↗

— Kate O'Riordan

#dreaming #guard #vulnerability #dreams

If all you had was academic ability, you wouldn't have been able to get out of bed this morning. In fact, there wouldn't have been a bad to get out of. No one could have made one. You could have written about possibility of one, but not have constructed it. ↗

— Ken Robinson

#education #human-intelligence #education

It is depressing to have to point out, yet again, that there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say. Being asked to apologise for saying something unconscionable is not the same as being stripped of the legal right to say it. It’s really not very f-cking complicated. Cry “free speech” in such contexts, you are demanding the right to speak any bilge you wish without apology or fear of comeback. You are demanding not legal rights but an end to debate about and criticism of what you say. When did bigotry get so needy? ↗

— China Miéville

#bigotry #freedom-of-speech #whining #freedom

The consequences of an act affect the probability of it's occurring again. ↗

— B. F. Skinner

#affect #again #consequences #occurring #probability

Just because you’re grown up and then some doesn’t mean settling into the doldrums of predictability. Surprise people. Surprise yourself. (281) ↗

— Victoria Moran

#aging-gracefully #growing-older #predictability #age

But I knew it was pure masturbation, because down in my gut I wanted nothing more than a clean bed and a bright room and something solid to call my own at least until I got tired of it. There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detatched. ↗

— Hunter S. Thompson

#maturity #stability #age

Was it the forgetfulness of old age or personal incapacity that made the man able to say please but not thank you? ↗

— Yann Martel

#old-age #rudeness #study-in-character #age

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard there's nothing you can do. ↗

— Golda Meir

#inevitability #old-age #age