#ria

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. ↗

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

#imperialism #power #security

Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-- disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own. ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#factory-farming #meat #science #veganism #vegetarianism

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian. ↗

— Paul McCartney

#animal-rights #animal-welfare #vegan #vegetarian #cruelty

Our Intuition is the beacon that guides us to peace, and navigates us through the treacherous Karmic waters. ↗

— Kim Chestney

#intuition #karma #peace #sixth-sense #spirituality

It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#morbid #moriarty #science #sherlock #skull

All my life, in nameless, indeterminate ways, I'd tried to complete my life with someone else--first my father, then Hugh, even Whit, and I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to belong to myself. ↗

— Sue Monk Kidd

#self-love #life

Mmm. O positive, my favorite.” “Is it? I thought it was a cabernet sauvignon.” “So it is,” said Adrian, straight-faced. “My mistake. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#mistakes

All that mattered was that he was Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I’d just signed on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right that I’d also signed myself up for disaster, but I didn’t care. In that moment, it seemed that as long as Adrian and I were together, there was no challenge too great for us. ↗

— Richelle Mead

#love #sydney-sage #sydrian #love

If we were to gain God's perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying our things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in an asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall. ↗

— Randy Alcorn

#christianity #clarity #display #hoarding #horror

The author's projected intellectual climate nearly 500 years in the future proclaims itself too pragmatic to consider living well as important as material satisfaction. This reminds us, ironically, that choosing NOT to consider life's deeper questions is in itself a choice with profound and lasting consequences. ↗

— Bryan M. Litfin

#philosophy #pragmatism #life