#iv

I told her stories. They were only a sentence long, each one of them. That’s all I knew how to find. So I told her broken stories. The little pieces of broken stories I could find. I told her what I could. I told her that the Global Alliance had issued more warnings about the possibility of total war if their demands were not met. I told her that the Emperor Nero, from Rome, had a giant sea built where he could keep sea monsters and have naval battles staged for him. I told her that there had been rioting in malls all over America, and that no one knew why. I told her that the red-suited Santa Claus we know — the regular one? — was popularized by the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s. I told her that the White House had not confirmed or denied reports that extensive bombing had started in major cities in South America. I told her, “There’s an ancient saying in Japan, that life is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we’re all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there’s nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams. ↗

— M.T. Anderson

#decline-of-civilization #excess #dreams

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me. ↗

— Martin Niemöller

#compassion #cowardice #diversity #human-rights #diversity

Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#civilisation #cowardice #law #cowardice

The acknowledgement of White cowardice has driven literally tens of millions of White Americans to try to escape it by undergoing a voluntary human metamorphosis and becoming "part-Indian." 95% would become proven liars by a simple DNA test, but their children grow up believing the lie. Abandoning the White race means not having to fight for it or defend it in any way. ↗

— Frazier Glenn Miller

#native-american #part-indian #white-people #cowardice

Cordelia: I personally don't think it's possible to come up with a crazier plan. Oz: We attack the Mayor with hummus. Cordelia: I stand corrected. Oz: Just keeping things in perspective. ↗

— Joss Whedon

#perspective #plans #humour

A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path, for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#character #descriptive #description

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque. ↗

— Salman Rushdie

#individualism #conformity

It would be well to realize that the talk of ‘humane methods of warfare’, of the ‘rules of civilized warfare’, and all such homage to the finer sentiments of the race are hypocritical and unreal, and only intended for the consumption of stay-at-homes. There are no humane methods of warfare, there is no such thing as civilized warfare; all warfare is inhuman, all warfare is barbaric; the first blast of the bugles of war ever sounds for the time being the funeral knell of human progress… What lover of humanity can view with anything but horror the prospect of this ruthless destruction of human life. Yet this is war: war for which all the jingoes are howling, war to which all the hopes of the world are being sacrificed, war to which a mad ruling class would plunge a mad world. ↗

— James Connolly

#civilized #death #destruction #elite #humanity

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#individuality #conformity

Any fool can do something cool and look cool, but it takes skill to make something uncool cool again. ↗

— Criss Jami

#cool #coolness #fool #independence #individuality