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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #iv
In neo-classical economic theory, it is claimed without evidence that people are basically self-seeking, that they want above all the satisfaction of their material desires: what economists call "maximising utility". The ultimate objective of mankind is economic growth, and that is maximized only through raw, and lightly regulated, competition. If the rewards of this system are spread unevenly, that is a necessary price. Others on the planet are to be regarded as either customers, competitors or factors of production. Effects upon the planet itself are mere "externalities" to the model, with no reckoning of the cost - at least for now. Nowhere in this analysis appears factors such as human cooperation, love, trust, compassion or hatred, curiosity or beauty. Nowhere appears the concept of meaning. What cannot be measured is ignored. But the trouble is that once our basic needs for shelter and food have been met, these factors may be the most important of all. ↗
#consumerism #cooperation #economics #freedom #laissez-faire
The forests were crippled, the wheat fields vanished; in place of the grass there reappeared stone and drifting sand. Men perished and moved on, the cities sank back into the sand, the dust settled over them. Thousands of years later Nordic dreamers dug up the petrified culture from the rubble and ashes. Today, the entire picture of the former paradise stands before our eyes as a spent dream which had once produced life, beauty and strength as long as a superior race ruled. It will live again and it will dream again. But as soon as races of a dreamless kind took over and attempted to realize the dream, reality vanished with the dream. ↗
I don't know if I will have the time to write anymore letters because I might be too busy trying to participate. So if this does end up being the last letter I just want you to know that I was in a bad place before I started high school and you helped me. Even if you didn't know what I was talking about or know someone who has gone through it, you made me not feel alone. Because I know there are people who say all these things don't happen. And there are people who forget what it's like to be 16 when they turn 17. I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening, I am here and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this moment I swear, we are infinite. ↗
Oz: I spoke to Giles. He said I'll be okay. I just have to lock myself up around the full moon. Only he used more words than that. And a globe. Willow: I'm sorry about how all this ended up. With me shooting you and all. Oz: It's okay. I'm, I'm sorry I almost ate you. Willow: It's okay. I kind of thought you would have told me. Oz: I didn't know what to say. I mean, it's not everyday you find out you're a werewolf. That's fairly freaksome. It may take a couple days getting used to. Willow: Yeah. It's a complication. Oz: So...maybe it'd be best if I just... sorta... Willw: What? Oz: Well, you know, like, stayed out of your way for awhile. Willow: I don't know. I'm kind of okay with you being *in* my way. Oz: You mean, you'd still... Willow: Well, I like you. You're nice and you're funny. And you don't smoke. Yeah okay, werewolf, but that's not all the time. I mean, three days out of the month I'm not much fun to be around either. ↗
Yet I never sought what is real, yearned for the real, but rather I have yearned for dreams more than solid things. I can say I love the textures of dreams. The way they hover and almost taste. The clouds and darkness that linger behind, mostly unseen. And the palette of dreams. You can almost taste the colours, they seem as words on the tip of the tongue, unsayable as pomegranate seeds, unsayable as thick cream, the darkness of such a thick cream. This is why I am obsessed with dreams. They know what we cannot. Night after night they try and tell us the impossible. Dreams are secret and closed, and also contain everything, gushing, splayed open. Dream suitcases, carpetbags, hold-alls. They influence us secretly and they draw me to travel to nowhere, to beauty’s passage, through halls of mirrors where I know I am not myself, I know I am sublime. ↗
(In the words of Irina, a minor character of the story, a young girl who is sentenced to imprisonment in Siberia and knows that she will never return): "There's something I would like to understand. And I dno't think anyone can explain it. . . There's your life. You begin it, feeling that it's something so precious and rare, so beautiful that it's like a sacred treasure. Now it's over and it doesn't make any difference to anyone, and it isn't that they are indifferent, it's just that they don't know, they don't know what it means, that treasure of mine, and there's something about it that they should understand. I don't understand it myself, but there's something about it that should be understood by all of us. Only what is it? What? ↗
