Even better if you can provide your own understanding of its meaning.
Mine would be :
“Nothing kills a man as much as being forced to represent a country” (and err considering the context, I must stress it has nothing to do with the current US shitshow), by a WW1 soldier, illustrator and writer named Jacques Vaché.
For me it just means being forced into representing a group (national, of course, but maybe also social, racial, sexual, professional, any kind of group) or defining one’s identity only by reference to a group is to be avoided at all costs.
Note : Its not the same, imho, as engaging in a collective struggle or defense against a common oppression.
How about you?
Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.
H.P. Lovecraft
Given his political leanings, very appropriate.
TBH his writing style was a bit adjective-y too, although the world he built is fascinating. (I know less about his many letters and journals)
Yeah…I try to not dwell on his questionable (very wrong and racist) ideas he had, and focus on the cosmic horror. 100 % adjective-y (never really thought about his work like that, but it’s too true haha).
I just liked the quote disregarding his ideas. I even used it on the cover page of my thesis.
I do quite like the memes of HP’s most nightmarish situation being in an elevator with a Welsh person, or having AC. They’re pretty spot on.
Anyways, I just wanted to make sure no one thought I agree with his views, I just like the cosmic horror.
Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I see how I did that now.
To give another example illustrating the quote, Tolkien called himself an anarcho-monarchist and meant it. His explanation did not make it clearer what that means.
No worries. I just wanted to make sure people knew I don’t agree with his ideas. I just love his writing and mythos he started haha.
Interesting Tolkien quote, I’ll have to look up his explanation, but I have no clue how anyone would define that.
“be someones angel”
quote from this little video that really stuck with me, as silly as it might sound
I suppose it’s less about the quote origin and more about what we make it to mean :)
“The stone cannot know why the chisel cleaves it. The iron cannot know why the fire scorches it. When thy life is cleft and scorched; when death and sadness leap at thee, beat not thy breast and curse thy evil fate. But thank The Builder for the trials which shape thee.”
From Thief: The Dark Project
“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”
I would be so far ahead of where I am right now if I had just decided on a course and committed instead of analyzing all the choices to death.
“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” - Winnie-the-Pooh
I didn’t read Winnie-the-Pooh till I was an adult and when I read this it felt like reading a universal truth everyone should know. It nearly brought me to tears.
It sounds like you might like “The Tao of Pooh”.
Rated by whom?
You don’t need to do everything every day. Some days, surviving is enough.
It is said that cameras don’t lie, but we must remember that liars use cameras. - Michael Parenti
This is a statement on the bias of all media, i like to use the same quote regarding statistics too.
I’ve heard that something like 67.3% of statistics are made up on the spot and 95.2% of people believe then whether they’re accurate or not - especially if there’s a decimal involved.
Even if its not straigh up made up, data can be easily manipulated by omission of other data, disingenous presentation (countries military spending graphs for example), outdated methodology, or straigh up meaningless indexes (freedom index lmao).
There are just way too many ways to manipulate data to paint a narrative and people that are just politically asleep, think of STEM area people, are easily fooled by these tactics.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim
Underrated Dory wisdom
Wen in dbt breath deep
It’s not a party if it happens every night
It’s a poem by Stephen Crane, but so short I’m often reminded of it in full:
A man said to the universe:
”Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
It sounds nihilistic, but it’s somehow calming whenever I start to feel like I’ve been wronged or I’m owed a break of some sort.
“Who’s ‘we’, paleface?”
It’s from a silly joke, so it’s not meant to be taken seriously. But I remember it every time some politician or Internet dweller or anything in between uses “we” to describe a position, an opinion, etc. Who’s ‘we’? Do you dream to speak for others, for me? In my stead?
Love this one. Used to teach students in political science about the horrible thing that “political ventiloquism” is.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Those who know history are doomed to know it’s repeating.
It’s the second part that makes this otherwise well know phrase hit much closer to home for me.
“Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source” - Iroh
And
“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.” - Hitchhikers Guide
Dont think about things too much. Just accept it, and change accordingly with a response
Also from H2G2, behold the majestic : " -Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d far rather be happy than right any day.
-And are you?
-Ah. No. Well that’s where it all falls down, of course "
I like it even better in the movie, Bill Nighy embodies this sentence perfectly.
Came for the second, stayed for the first
