#lit

... Whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because, if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we're been longing for than to be stifled by our longing. ↗

— Thomas Bernhard

#carefree #illness #longevity #mortality #aspiration

High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water. ↗

— Mark Twain

#water #wine #wine

Force is all conquering, but it's victories are short lived. ↗

— Abraham Lincoln

#militarism #victory

To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble. ↗

— Mark Twain

#sharing #noble

What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#choice #responsibility #anarchy

Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities. ↗

— Criss Jami

#creative #creativity #disagreeable #envy #intimidating

TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty. ↗

— Walt Whitman

#politics #wisdom #obedience

I am at liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictates to be right, without the yoke of any party on me... Look at my arms, you will find no party hand-cuff on them. ↗

— David Crockett

#loyalty #politics #judgment

It was quiet in the cell. Rubashov heard only the creaking of his steps on the tiles. Six and a half steps to the door, whence they must come to fetch him, six and a half steps to the window, behind which night was falling. Soon it would be over. But when he asked himself, For what actually are you dying? he found no answer. It was a mistake in the system; perhaps it lay in the precept which until now he had held to be uncontestable, in whose name he had sacrificed others and was himself being sacrificed: in the precept, that the end justifies the means. It was this sentence which had killed the great fraternity of the Revolution and made them run amuck. What had he once written in his diary? "We have thrown overboard all conventions, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic; we are sailing without ethical ballast. ↗

— Arthur Koestler

#politics #revolution #russia #soviet-union #communism

Doffing the ego's safe glory, he finds his naked reality. ↗

— Dag Hammarskjöld

#reality #self #zen #zen