#ted

A profound impression was created by the discourses of Professor GN Chakravarti and Mrs Besant, who is said to have risen to unusual heights of eloquence, so exhilarating were the influences of the gathering. Besides those who represented our society and religions, especially Vivekananda, VR Gandhi, Dharmapala, captivated the public, who had only heard of Indian people through the malicious reports of interested missionaries, and were now astounded to see before them and hear men who represented the ideal of spirituality and human perfectibility as taught in their respective sacred writings. ↗

— Henry Olcott

#captivated #chicago #dharmapala #henry-olcott #history

Some men escape the grip. Maybe their wives have no social ambitions; maybe they've hit a sentence or two in a 'dangerous book' that pleased them; maybe they started on the treadmill as I did and were knocked off. Anyway, they're the congressmen you can't bribe, the Presidents who aren't politicians, the writers, speakers, scientists, statesmen who aren't just populate grab-bags for a half-dozen women and children. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#genuine #unaffected #men

The arrogance and brutality of empire are not repealed when they temporarily get deployed in a just cause. ↗

— Michael Kazin

#arrogance #brutality #imperialism #united-states #war

A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. ↗

— Ron Paul

#capitalism #central #central bank #cherishes #contracts

Slowly like a movie fade out, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#feeling #reading #movies

A blanket could be used as a screen to project animated bedtime stories onto, and also a place to project your fears about society not being accepting of adults who watch movies directed at an audience of four-year-olds. Trust me, I’ve been there—26 years ago. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#brick-and-blanket-iq-test #brick-and-blanket-responses #brick-and-blanket-test #brick-and-blanket-uses #funny

The religion of the future will be cosmic religion. It will transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#religion

But the nature of the universe is such that the ends never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#rationalizations #unsourced #nature

We must therefore rediscover, after the natural world, the social world, not as an object or sum of objects, but as a permanent field or dimension of existence. ↗

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty

#perception #reality #nature

..."stupidity: a process, not a state. A human being takes in far more information that he or she can put out. 'Stupidity' is a process or strategy by which a human, in response to social denigration of the information [they] put[] out, commits [themself] to taking in no more information than [they] can put out. (Not to be confused with ignorance, or lack of data.) Since such a situation is impossible to achieve because of the nature of mind.perception itself in its relation to the functioning body, a continuing downward spiral of functionality and/or informative dissemination results." and he understood why! "The process, however, can be reversed," the voice continued," at any time... ↗

— Samuel R. Delany

#edited-for-gender-binaryisms #ignorance #knowledge #stupidity #nature