#my

The particular myth that's been organizing this talk, and in a way the whole series, is the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible. The civilization we live in at present is a gigantic technological structure, a skyscraper almost high enough to reach the moon. It looks like a single world-wide effort, but it's really a deadlock of rivalries; it looks very impressive, except that it has no genuine human dignity. For all its wonderful machinery, we know it's really a crazy ramshackle building, and at any time may crash around our ears. What the myth tells us is that the Tower of Babel is a work of human imagination, that its main elements are words, and that what will make it collapse is a confusion of tongues. All had originally one language, the myth says. The language is not English or Russian or Chinese or any common ancestor, if there was one. It is the language that makes Shakespeare and Pushkin authentic poets, that gives a social vision to both Lincoln and Gandhi. It never speaks unless we take the time to listen in leisure, and it speaks only in a voice too quiet for panic to hear. And then all it has to tell us, when we look over the edge of our leaning tower, is that we are not getting any nearer heaven, and that it is time to return to earth. [p.98] ↗

— Northrop Frye

#myth #education

Our system of private health insurance that fails to provide coverage to so many of our citizens also contributes to the double-digit health care inflation that is making America less competitive in the global economy. ↗

— John Conyers

#america #care #citizens #competitive #contributes

I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge. ↗

— Steve Coogan

#always #audience #being #challenge #character

The eruption of lived pleasure is such that in losing myself I find myself; forgetting that I exist, I realize myself. ↗

— Raoul Vaneigem

#exist #find #forgetting #i #lived

Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business. ↗

— Calvin Coolidge

#administration #been #business #important #minding

But when I really look back on my life, being really honest about it and now that I've got the chance to travel the world, seeing how a lot of little kids grow up - my life wasn't so bad. ↗

— Coolio

#back #bad #being #chance #got

I play piano and guitar and I do write my own stuff so to a certain extent I know what I want to do in regards to music. But I'm still finding out what kind of music is my favourite kind to listen to, never mind do myself so I've got a lot of time to find out myself and develop myself as an artist. ↗

— Richard Fleeshman

#certain #certain extent #develop #extent #favourite

I do know what my family has done for me, but they do need to give me some space to let me be myself. There would be some things I would handle differently. ↗

— Kim Wilde

#done #family #give #give me #handle

If you're a single man and you happen to be in this business, you're deemed a player. But I don't see myself as a ladies' man. ↗

— Bradley Cooper

#deemed #happen #i #ladies #man

When I left Bradford and got a phone call from Dave Parnaby asking 'did I want to come back in?', I was delighted to accept. The whole buzz at the club at the moment is great for someone like me who is still learning and wanting to hopefully go into management in my own right at some point. ↗

— Colin Cooper

#asking #back #buzz #call #club