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Quote by Benny Bellamacina

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Philosophical Uplifting Quotes and Poems

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Benny Bellamacina

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“So, sometimes it’s necessary to level the board. Sometimes when the bad guy keeps winning, the questions of right and wrong get a little cloudy. When that situation is created then it becomes necessary to do the right thing even if it’s technically the wrong thing or there’s no justice. And there are people that do that. The Baba Yaga’s of the world.”

“Last Words. It will be recollected that the Emperor Augustus, that terrible man, who had himself as much in his own power and could be silent as well as any wise Socrates, became indiscreet about himself in his last words; for the first time he let his mask fall, when he gave to understand that he had carried a mask and played a comedy, - he had played the father of his country and wisdom on the throne well, even to the point of illusion! Plaudite amici, comoedia finita est! - The thought of the dying Nero: qualis artifexpereo! was also the thought of the dying Augustus: histrionic conceit! histrionic loquacity! And the very counterpart to the dying Socrates! - But Tiberius died silently, that most tortured of all self-torturers, - he was genuine and not a stage-player! What may have passed through his head in the end! Perhaps this: " Life - that is a long death. I am a fool, who shortened the lives of so many! Was I created for the purpose of being a benefactor? I should have given them eternal life: and then I could have seen them dying eternally. I had such good eyes for that: qualis spectator pereo!" When he seemed once more to regain his powers after a long death-struggle, it was considered advisable to smother him with pillows, - he died a double death.”

“How might people in some other village or town rise up each morning? What does being alive mean to them? It isn't likely that they wake up every day expecting to die. They likely want to live at least as much as we do, and they want this for each other too. Experience has taught them not that life is cruel, random, arbitrary, unjust. Experience has taught them that life is unlikely, everything considered. Waking up each day, and having your children do so, is not written in the stars, not an entitlement, far from inevitable. It is not even the fair trade meritocratic consequence of being careful and living right. For all that, waking up each day is a gift. It is a gift that is not reward for playing by the rules. It is a gift from the Gods, giving each living person the capacity not just to go on, but to go on as if he or she has been gifted, to go on in gratitude and wonder that all the things of the world that keep them alive have continued while they slept. Wonder, awe, and a feeling of being on the receiving end for now of something mysteriously good: These are antidotes to depression.”