#versus

Subjects prize public tranquillity; citizens the freedom of the individual-the former prefer security of possessions, the latter security of person; the former want crimes to be punished, the latter want them prevented; subjects think it is a good thing to be feared by their neighbors, citizens prefer to be ignored by them; the former are satisfied so long as money circulates, the latter demand that the people shall have bread. ↗

— Rousseau

#freedom

If we think of the novel and the epic...The difference lies in the fact that the important thing about the epic is a hero--a man who is a pattern for all men. While, as Mencken pointed out, the essence of most novels lies in the breaking down of a man, in the degeneration of character. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#ennobling-versus-degenerating #epics-versus-novels #men

You can never have too much money. ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#lottery #lottery-tickets #materialism #materialism-versus-spiritualism #money

The left-hand path adept seeks to liberate him/herself from passive subjection to the illusory nature of Maya, thus freeing the consciousness from the binds of self-created delusion. ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#jivanmukta #left-hand-path #materialism-versus-spiritualism #spiritual-transformation #nature

Modern materialists and religious extremists alike lack the spiritual animistic reverence for non-human beings that every culture once understood as a given. ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#animism #beatdom #environmentalism #materialism-versus-spiritualism #religious-extremism

Cannabis sativa and its derivatives are strictly prohibited in Turkey, and the natural correlative of this proscription is that alcohol, far from being frowned upon as it is in other Moslem lands, is freely drunk; being a government monopoly it can be bought at any cigarette counter. This fact is no mere detail; it is of primary social importance, since the psychological effects of the two substances are diametrically opposed to each other. Alcohol blurs the personality by loosening inhibitions. The drinker feels, temporarily at least, a sense of participation. Kif abolishes no inhibitions; on the contrary it reinforces them, pushes the individual further back into the recesses of his own isolated personality, pledging him to contemplation and inaction. It is to be expected that there should be a close relationsip between the culture of a given society and the means used by its members to achieve release and euphoria. For Judaism and Christianity the means has always been alcohol; for Islam it has been hashish. The first is dynamic in its effects, the other static. If a nation wishes, however mistakenly, to Westernize itself, first let it give up hashish. The rest will follow, more or less as a manner of course. Conversely, in a Western country, if a whole segment of the population desires, for reasons of protest (as has happened in the United States), to isolate itself in a radical fashion from the society around it, the quickest and surest way is for it to replace alcohol by cannabis. ↗

— Paul Bowles

#cannabis #east-versus-west #weed #nature

No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#beginning #cause #determined #existence #fact

If you're the village blacksmith and a model T comes along, you better become a mechanic. People's lives are better when they get news online versus having to wait for the morning paper. It's a lot more efficient, a lot more real time, a lot less waste. ↗

— Marc Andreessen

#become #better #comes #efficient #get

My first meeting as a senator, my first day, they were already talking about the next election. Part of that's the permanent campaign, part of that's a word I've been using more frequently, 'tribal.' Our politics has become tribal: It's us versus them. ↗

— Evan Bayh

#already #become #been #campaign #day

You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear. ↗

— Sammy Davis, Jr.

#choices #commitment #fear #two #versus