#so

[O]ne cannot separate violence from the very exist­ ence of the state (as the apparatus of class domination): from the standpoint of the'subordinated and oppressed, the very existence of a state is a fact of violence (in the same sense in which, for example, Robespierre said, in his justification of the regicide, that one does not have to prove that the king committed any specific crimes, since the very existence of the king is a crime, an offence against the freedom of the people). In this strict sense, every violence of the oppressed against the ruling class and its state is ultimately ‘defensive’. If we do not concede this point, we volens nolens ‘normalize’ the state and accept that its violence is merely a matter of contin­ gent excesses (to be dealt with through democratic reforms). ↗

— Slavoj Žižek

#revolution #death

The bird in space, the fish on land, man in condominiums. ↗

— Bauvard

#environment #evolution #nature #society #death

As I remember his laugh, there was nothing mad about it, it was more like the laugh of someone who has been the victim of a practical joke, a farce in which he had believed until suddenly he realized his folly. ↗

— Guy Sajer

#soldier #war #world-war-ii #death

Jesus is a descendant of David, the beloved of God. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God who was born into this world and died and rose again. Saint John calls him the Word and the Light. When he died, he did so as atonement for our sins, and when he rose, he did so to defeat the power and curse of death and hell on this once-holy world. Do you believe in him? ↗

— David Holdsworth

#belief #beloved #christianity #faith #holy-in-christ

Tell me yourself directly, I challenge you – reply: imagine that you yourself are erecting the edifice of human fortune with the goal of, at the finale, making people happy, of at last giving them peace and quiet, but that in order to do it would be necessary and unavoidable to torture to death only one little creature, that same little child that beat its little fist, and on its unavenged tears to found that edifice, would you agree to be the architect on those conditions, tell me and tell me truly? ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#death

Each of them, all unknowing, fairly gives its due to each chance of life, to each germ of death within itself. ↗

— Paul Valéry

#death

Do you feel no compunction, Socrates, at having followed a line of action which puts you in danger of the death penalty?' I might fairly reply to him, 'You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action--that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one. ↗

— Socrates

#right-and-wrong-in-philosophy #death

Life and all that is in it is a gift from the infinite mind / God; And the only way that life can go wrong is by the limited finite mind / Man. ↗

— Eric F. Saucier

#life #living #meaning-of #reason-for #death

I try not to look like a university man here....My fellow-guests think of a university degree as a disgraceful preliminary to the blood-sucking life of the bourgeoisie. A sign, moreover, that a man has to earn his own living. ↗

— Eilís Dillon

#professor #death

Unfortunately they failed to appreciate the best part of you, preferring to lose themselves in the labyrinth of your grosser illusions. Didn't I show our well-behaved audience an angelized version of you? And you saw their reaction. They were bored and just sat in their seats like a bunch of stiffs. Of course, what can you expect? They wanted the death stuff, the pain stuff. All that flashy junk. They wanted cartwheels of agonized passion; somersaults into fires of doom; nosedives, if you will, into the frenzied pageant of vulnerable flesh. They wanted a tangible thrill. ("Drink To Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes") ↗

— Thomas Ligotti

#sadism #sensation #spectacle #thrills #death