“What good is a revolution anyway if it isn’t joyful?”
Source: The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
“They built a city of their dreams, with a thriving gift economy and vibrant culture that encouraged all participants to let loose their wildest, most glorious freak. They weren’t protesting; they were celebrating.”
Source: The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
“It is not my place to offer pep talks, aphorisms, or dictums. But if I had to give one piece of practical advice it would be this: Find something that you love that they're fucking with and then fight for it. If everyone did that--imagine the difference. (50)”
Source: My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism
“The path towards peace is not for the righteous, the ethical, the active and the compassionate to shit on the malicious, the complacent, the violent and the ignorant. The path towards peace is to be peaceful.”
“i will admit there's a certain degree of giving a fuck that goes into not giving a fuck. by saying you don't care if the world falls apart, in some small way you're saying you want it to stay together, on your terms.”
Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
“I resisted the urge to hurl my plate at him. “Of course not, Ian. It’s just that normally at this hour, Bones and I are fucking like rabbits, so I get twitchy when I have to wait for him to climb aboard.”
Source: At Grave's End
“Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, ....whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: Writings
“The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”
Source: The Fire Next Time
“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do -- but who is that 'we'? -- and nothing 'they' can do either -- and who are 'they' -- then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.”
Source: Regarding the Pain of Others
“I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple.”
Source: Dark Places