#sm

Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order. ↗

— Anne Wilson Schaef

#work #abuse

I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.) ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#vegetarians #lifestyle

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. ↗

— Napoleon Bonaparte

#organized-religion #religion #religion

In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume. ↗

— Anne Rice

#new-orleans #vampires #rich

Give me a few minutes.” “You have time.” He sat in the grass. “Are you just going to sit there and watch me?” “Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best.” “Peasant?” He shrugged. “You started the name calling. ↗

— Ilona Andrews

#flirting #sarcasm #rich

there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst. ↗

— Stephen King

#preparedness #king

Even a really bad creator would at least have started with Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Surprise. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#creation

Before you judge me as some kind of 'anything goes' language heathen, let me just say that I'm not against usage standards. I don't violate them when I want to sound like an educated person, for the same reason I don't wear a bikini to a funeral when I want to look like a respectful person. There are social conventions for the way we do lots of things, and it is to everyone's benefit to be familiar with them. But logic ain't got nothin' to do with it. ↗

— Arika Okrent

#language #linguistics #prescriptivism #education

We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon and the American struggle in Iraq. These events swung American public opinion in our favor ↗

— Benjamin Netanyahu

#israel #jews #terrorism #war-on-terror #zionism

I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#criminal-justice-system #cycle-of-violence #desperation #greed #homelessness