Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“Love is not a weak, spineless emotion; it is a powerful moral force on the side of justice.”

—Reverend Bernice B. King, The Atlantic, March 1, 2018



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“[Man] is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become, to fulfill his destiny. In every act of moral self-affirmation man contributes to the fulfillment of his destiny, to the actualization of what he potentially is.”

—Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Morals have given rise to charity and pity, two dumplings that have grown like elephants, planets, which people call good. There is nothing good about them. Goodness is lucid, clear and resolute, and ruthless towards compromise and politics. Morality infuses chocolate into every man’s veins.”

—Tristan Tzara, dada manifesto

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.”

—Ian McEwan, “Only Love and Then Oblivion,” The Guardian, Sept. 15, 2001 

This is a beautifully written short piece. You can read the full essay here.

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.”

—Rudyard Kipling, “In the Neolithic Age”

You can read the whole poem here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I’d like to respectfully dedicate this poem to Fred Willard. He isn’t the one who inspired me to write it some years past, but he does prove that there is no new thing under the sun.

Rising Star

We all have demons
prowling the verges
of propriety,
doing things
we’d be embarrassed
to see
on the six o’clock news.

Thank goodness
there are high-minded
folk
to keep us cringing
in the dark
with furtive phantoms.
Otherwise, we might think
it is okay to have secrets.

Thank God
there is a morality squad
to check who’s
twanging what
is some feverish corner,
or who knows
but we might learn
to forgive ourselves?

Thank goodness
demons aren’t allowed
in sunshine,
except as objects
of scorn
and tabloid meat.
Otherwise, we might think
other people had demons, too,
demons some might call
human needs.

Thank God
everyone pretends
they’ve never encountered
one lonely, vulnerable, foolish
moment
when all that matters
is that the demon
has looked you in the eye,
known you
to your lascivious toes,
and taken you
on an irresistible ride
to parts
not unknown.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

 

“If we are honest with ourselves today, we will acknowledge that the ideal of Democracy has never failed, but that we haven’t carried it out, and in our lack of faith we have debased the human being who must have a chance to live if Democracy is to be successful.”

—Eleanor Roosevelt, The Moral Basis of Democracy, 1940

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.”

—Aldous Huxley, “Summary of the Life-Worshipper’s Creed,” Do What You Will

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:


"The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot."

—Mark Twain, What Is Man?




For a slightly different take on this, here's a fascinating article from the New York Times from 2006 on "An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong."




( Illustrated version. )




Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

About the Quotes of the Day: It's a huge file because I've been obsessively collecting quotes for years—500 pages at last count with an average of 10 quotes per page. My three criteria for collecting quotes are that they are: 1) interesting; 2) attributable (no anonymous quotes, please); 3) that they come to me randomly (i.e., I don't look them up in quote books/sites); and oh, there is a fourth thing, 4) that they come back out of the file randomly. I don't always agree with the quotes that go into and back out of The File because I don't edit out opposing views, only hate speech and the like. That is why when I post the quotes at work I also post a disclaimer.


Disclaimer for the Quote of the Day:

These quotes do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, MYJOB or its subsidiaries, Leonard Maltin, Siegfried and Roy, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. However, sometimes they do reflect the views of the Cottingsley Fairies.


Quotes of the day:

"In waking from a dream, we obliterate worlds, and in calling up a memory, we return the dead to life again and again only to bring them face-to-face with annihilation as our attention shifts to something else."

—Jeffrey Ford, Memoranda


"It has been asserted, that a moral Atheist would be a monster beyond the power of nature to create: I reply, that it is not more strange for an Atheist to live virtuously, than for a Christian to abandon himself to crime! If we believe the last kind of monster, why dispute the existence of the first?"

—Pierre Bayle, 1647-1706


And then there's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgm48JYJJ04