#us

What is a genius? A person who demands little to nothing from others, but is often found extremely difficult to have around. ↗

— Criss Jami

#creative #different #difficulties #distinction #envy

Maxim 18: If the officers are leading from in front, watch out for an attack from the rear. -The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries ↗

— Howard Tayler

#military #rules-to-live-by #suspicion #unexpected #military

My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. ↗

— Herbert Hoover

#opportunity #patriotism #united-states #usa #independence

Prolific irony - For 8 years, the finger on the button that could end the world belonged to a president who couldn't pronounce the word "nuclear. ↗

— T. Rafael Cimino

#americans #atomic-bomb #george-bush #nuclear #nuclear-weapons

Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of being, one that isn't my own: under the influence of music I have the illusion of feeling things I don't really feel, of understanding things I don't understand, being able to do things I'm not able to do (...) Can it really be allowable for anyone who feels like it to hypnotize another person, or many other persons, and then do what he likes with them? Particularly if the hypnotist is the first unscrupulous individual who happens to come along? ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#illusions #music #psychology #music

Now, come over here so I can pat you down." "But you don't have-" Percy stopped. "Uh, sure." He stood next to the armless statue. Terminus conducted a rigorous mental pat down. "You seem to be clean," Terminus decided. "Do you have anything to declare?" "Yes," Percy said. "I declare that this is stupid. ↗

— Rick Riordan

#declare #mental-pat-down #no-arms #percy-jackson #terminus

Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot. ↗

— Stephen Fry

#bbc #language #linguistics #writing #trust

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ↗

— Upton Sinclair

#evolution #ideology #obtuseness #understanding #ideology

Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins. ↗

— Joyce Cary

#anarchists #buddha #church #churches #confucius

The brain may die, but my compulsion for useless trivia lives on. ↗

— Molly Harper

#trivia #undead #useless-information #vampire-romance #information