quotes that you found and like to share
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17887604
"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered. But never before have I watched as soldiers enticed children like mice into a trap and murdered them for sport."
- Christopher Hedges American journalist on assignment in Gaza
"There will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation." -- MALCOLM X, 1965
Context: https://lemmy.world/post/25901009
cross-posted from: https://szmer.info/post/5995617
David Rolfe Graeber (/ˈɡreɪbər/; February 12, 1961 – September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Bullshit Jobs (2018), and The Dawn of Everything (2021), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.
Not sure where he said this, or even if he truly said this. His work has been almost completely lost to time, and it's hard to tell if what's left is even accurate. That said, Wikipedia credits this quote to a book from Princeton University press. The text for anyone who can't read it:
"One hundred years is the limit of a long life. Not one in a thousand ever attains it. Suppose there is one such person. Infancy and feeble old age take almost half of his time. Rest during sleep at night and what is wasted during the waking hours in the daytime take almost half of that. Pain and sickness, sorrow and suffering, death (of relatives) and worry and fear take almost half of the rest. In the ten and some years that is left, I reckon, there is not one moment in which we can be happy, at ease without worry. This being the case, what is life for? What pleasure is there? For beauty and abundance, that is all. For music and sex, that is all. But the desire for beauty and abundance cannot always be satisfied, and music and sex cannot always be enjoyed. Besides, we are prohibited by punishment and exhorted by rewards, pushed by fame and checked by law. We busily strive for the empty praise which is only temporary, and seek extra glory that would come after death. Being alone ourselves, we pay great care to what our ears hear and what our eyes see, and are much concerned with what is right or wrong for our bodies and minds. Thus we lose the great happiness of the present and cannot give ourselves free rein for a single moment. What is the difference between that and many chains and double prisons?"
If I remember rightly, this is from Colin From Accounts.
This quote popped up the other day, and I just wanted to share it. With everything going on in the world right now, and especially in my country personally, I can't help but wonder why I have always strove to be good and to do my best for not only myself, but everyone I have ever met. Maybe when I'm lying there dying from whatever is to come, I will fully regret being a "good" person.
“I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.” – W.E.B. DuBois (1956)
"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." --Harry S. Truman
United States. President (1945-1953 : Truman), Harry S. Truman (1961). “Harry S. Truman: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, 1945-53”^[[1] https://www.azquotes.com/quote/602829]
