#cia

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didnt get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life ↗

— Lynne Twist

#satisfaction #self-appreciation #jealousy

My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level. ↗

— Michael H. Hart

#phenpomena #religion #social #truth #religion

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#extremism #opinion #opinions #passion #rationalism

The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values. ↗

— Noam Chomsky

#philosophy #religion #social-sciences #religion

Atheism is the opium of the mathematicians. Atheism is the religion of Mathematics. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#atheist #exist #gaede #god #mathematical-physics

Washington politicians basically view the People as a capricious and dangerous enemy, a dumb mob whose only interesting quality happens to be their power to take away politicians' jobs... When the government sees its people as the enemy, sooner or later that feeling gets to be mutual. And that's when the real weirdness begins. ↗

— Matt Taibbi

#elected-officials #government #politics #religion

He said he didn’t think Lenore should go to the G.O.D. "Nobody ever finds anybody in a place like that," he said, "People don’t go to a place like that to look for other people. That’s the opposite of the whole concept that’s behind the thing. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#desert #religion #religion

Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's injunction to 'remember your humanity and forget the rest.' It would be immodest to claim membership in this fraternity/sorority, but I hope not to have done anything to outrage it. Despite the idiotic sneer that such principles are 'fashionable,' it is always the ideas of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#atheism #internationalism #libertarianism #politics #religion

There were a Te Deum, clouds of incense, endless volleys of musketry and artillery; the peasants were frantic with joy and piety. Such a day undoes the work of a hundred numbers of the Jacobin papers. ↗

— Stendhal

#political #religion #satirical #social #theredandtheblack

Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True. One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap,--a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. ↗

— Kakuzō Okakura

#music