#ali

A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter. ↗

— Alan Wilson Watts

#faith #freedom #laughter #mysticism #religion

The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity. ↗

— Erich Fromm

#freedom #materialism #poverty #freedom

America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products. ↗

— Thomas L. Friedman

#capitalism #economics #freedom #liberty #politics

Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not. ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#moral-absolutism #morality #police #privilege #responsibility

What is given to you is what is needed; what you want, requires giving up what you don't need. ↗

— George Alexiou

#happiness #inspirational #self-help #spirituality #surrender

And also it was a process of, we lifted weights as well, in an effort to train my body to then be able to lift heavier weights when I got in Australia. So that was the first couple of months. ↗

— Brandon Routh

#also #australia #body #couple #effort

Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year? Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals. ↗

— Karl Rove

#al #been #broadcasts #certainly #danger

There is a deep affection in Australia for the Queen. And I mean the Queen's been the Queen ever since I was born. I mean she is part of the firmament of Australia's sort of national life; there's a deep respect for her role. ↗

— Kevin Rudd

#australia #been #born #deep #ever

I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem. ↗

— Richard Buckminster Fuller

#process #quality #design

In this day and time, with no competition you are really walking a tightrope. I mean you may think that no competition is good, but in reality no competition is really bad. ↗

— Jerry Lawler

#competition #day #good #i #may