#ali

The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. ↗

— William Makepeace Thackeray

#dishonesty #double-standards #morality #vice #vanity

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains. ↗

— Titus Lucretius Carus

#heart #peril #reality #truth #adversity

Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad. ↗

— Trevanian

#generalizations #politics #dictatorship

Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in speech, which is a gauge of the heart's state. ↗

— Hamza Yusuf

#spirituality #hypocrisy

It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. ↗

— نجيب محفوظ

#heart #sentimentality #skepticism #skepticism

Do the children who prefer books set in the real, ordinary, workaday world ever read as obsessively as those who would much rather be transported into other worlds entirely? ↗

— Laura Miller

#children #escapism #fantasy #reading #reality

War does not decide who is right but who is left. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#war #morals

War doesn't negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace." - Baba ↗

— Khaled Hosseini

#war #morals

A world where it is safe to love is a world where it is safe to live ↗

— Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio

#ecosexuality #gaia #new-science #peace #polyamory

A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal... ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#athiesm #athiest #immortality #mortality #skepticism