#eli

After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference. ↗

— Charlotte Gray

#cat #feline #humor #humor

Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this:—one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul. For the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe that leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword. A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. ↗

— David Mitchell

#humanity #life-and-living #life

Every town you go to, they tell you what's special about their town. What they're number one at... This guy comes up and says, 'D'you know that we're the home of the world's largest frying pan?' '...Really! That is great 'cause I'm writin' a new book called Things I Don't Care About. ↗

— Tim Hawkins

#traveling #humor

I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be. ↗

— Ken Venturi

#believe #better #could #else #ever

All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess. ↗

— Marcel Duchamp

#chess #god #language #life #religion

A halo surrounded the grim reaper nun, Sister Maria. (By the way-I like this human idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It amuses me.) ↗

— Markus Zusak

#religion #death

Will you sleep with me?" he asked softly, before grinning suddenly. "In the tub? ↗

— Shelly Crane

#clara #eli #humor #tub #humor

If you make friends with yourself, you'll never be alone. ↗

— Maxwell Maltz

#friends #friendship #loneliness #solitude #friendship

I didn't want readers to have to make allowances for what they couldn't see, but to be able to say to themselves that the fabric of the magic detailed was perfectly believable. ↗

— Terry Brooks

#allowances #believable #detailed #fabric #i

Now I know what a piece of bacon feels like when it is suddenly picked out of the pan on a fork and put back on the shelf!" "No you don't!" he heard Dori answering, "because the bacon knows that it will get back in the pan sooner or later; and it is to be hoped we shan't. Also eagles aren't forks! ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#humor #relief #humor