••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Sunday, November 18, 2012

my current favorite quotes on my facebook page:

I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.
~ Socrates

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has.
~ Margaret Mead

It's not that complicated. The good guys are the ones who want more people to vote. The bad guys are the ones who want fewer people to vote.
~Joel Finkelstein

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
~ Mark Twain

It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so.
~ Artemus Ward

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
~ John Stuart Mill

The only way some of us exercise our minds is by jumping to conclusions.
~ Cullen Hightower

NEVER underestimate an opponent.
~ Sunzi

Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
~ Voltaire

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
~ Francis Bacon

You really only know when you know little; doubt grows with knowledge.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
~ Albert Einstein

All firm belief is a sickness.
~ Francis Picabia

Believe those who seek truth. Doubt those who find it.
~ Andre Gide

Doubt is the yeast of cognition.
~ Alessandro Morandotti

Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.
~ Pablo Picasso

The truth alone has never made anyone free. It is only doubt which will bring mental emancipation.
~ Anton LaVey

A witty saying proves nothing.
~ Voltaire

Words are the source of misunderstandings.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

waste no words.
~ david matthew

Our natural benevolence accounts, in great part, for the origin of morality.
~ David Hume

An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
~ Gandhi

Poverty is the worst form of violence.
~ Gandhi

Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
~ Gandhi

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
~ Gandhi

The day we see the truth and do not speak is the day we begin to die.
~ Martin Luther King
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
~ Martin Luther King

The time is always right to do what’s right.
~ Martin Luther King

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.
~ Martin Luther King

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
~ Martin Luther King

Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
~ Martin Luther King

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
~ Martin Luther King

I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom.
~ Martin Luther King

In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.
~ Martin Luther King

The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
~ Martin Luther King

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
~ Martin Luther King

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
~ Martin Luther King

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
~ Martin Luther King

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
~ Martin Luther King

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
~ Martin Luther King

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
~ Martin Luther King

There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
~ Martin Luther King

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
~ Martin Luther King

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these".
~ Martin Luther King

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality.
~ Martin Luther King

... no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment.
~ Martin Luther King

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.
~ Martin Luther King

The course of true love never did run smooth.
~ Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

We are such stuff
as dreams are made on, and our little life
is rounded with a sleep.
~ Shakespeare, The Tempest

Empathy is the mortar that holds society together.
~ Chuck Close