#terre

The thing that makes countries want to pursue some kind of nuclear deterrent is precisely the fact that they feel threatened. ↗

— Stephen M. Walt

#deterrent #fact #feel #kind #makes

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#cannot #dangerous #examined #light #mortal

Deterrence itself is not a preeminent value; the primary values are safety and morality. ↗

— Herman Kahn

#itself #morality #primary #safety #value

But by all this I am not deterred, for I have seen, I have heard, I have felt. ↗

— Emanuel Swedenborg

#deterred #felt #heard #i #i am

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. ↗

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

#directly #i #i can #indirectly #interrelated

The present basic philosophy is nuclear deterrence. ↗

— Joseph Rotblat

#deterrence #nuclear #philosophy #present

The only peace that can be made with a dictator is once that must be based on deterrence. For today, the dictator may be your friend, but tomorrow he will need you as an enemy. ↗

— Natan Sharansky

#deterrence #dictator #enemy #friend #made

This planet seems to be in such sorry shape. And I can't ever think about the rest of the universe without coming back home and thinking what the implications for life here would be if we were to really have some definitive proof of extraterrestrial life. ↗

— Ann Druyan

#back #coming #definitive #ever #extraterrestrial

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. These days religious subjects are in disfavor, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. Wonderful stuff. You can argue it interminably. But it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics. ↗

— Michael Crichton

#brain #conjecture #consciousness #darwinism #evolution

And then there was pain and blood and tears, all those things that cause suffering and revolt, the killing of Françoise, the killing of Fouan, vice triumphing, and the stinking, bloodthirsty peasants, vermin who disgrace and exploit the earth. But can you really know? Just as the frost that burns the crops, the hail that chops them down, the thunderstorms which batter them are all perhaps necessary, maybe blood and tears are needed to keep the world going. And how important is human misery when weighed against the mighty mechanism of the stars and the sun? What does God care for us? We earn our bread only by dint of a cruel struggle, day in, day out. And only the earth is immortal, the Great Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play. ↗

— Émile Zola

#peasants #terre #vice #love