#is

When you are dealing with an invisible enemy, use most resources as shield, and a bit as a bait. ↗

— Toba Beta

#strategy #war #strategy

The goblins of the city may hold committees to divide a single potato, but the strong and the cruel still sit on the hill, and drink vodka, and wear black furs, and slurp borscht by the pail, like blood. Children may wear through their socks marching in righteous parades, but Papa never misses his wine with supper. Therefore, it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one’s stomach than of one’s nation. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#strength #survival-of-the-fittest #communism

Vodka goes well with a wintery perspective. Nothing else provokes such presentiments of falling snow except, for some, the communist seizure of the state. ↗

— Michèle Bernstein

#communist #seizure #snow #vodka #winter

I don't approve of mixing ideologies," Ivanov continued. "There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community--which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible. ↗

— Arthur Koestler

#communism #politics #communism

When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own. ↗

— Gary Snyder

#dharma #gary #mind #snyder #zen

Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days' worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out. ↗

— Ryokan

#buddhist #hermit #japan #japanese #monk

The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method? ↗

— Confucius

#wisdom #zen #zen

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. ↗

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#dissociation #mind #stoicism #transcendence #zen

Where there are humans, You'll find flies, And Buddhas. ↗

— Kobayashi Issa

#flies #zen #zen

A student, filled with emotion and crying, implored, "Why is there so much suffering?" Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason. ↗

— Shunryu Suzuki

#philosophy #suffering #wisdom #zen #zen-buddhism