Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Michael Bassey Johnson

Quote by Michael Bassey Johnson

Work

Song of a Nature Lover

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Michael Bassey Johnson

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Michael Bassey Johnson. more

You May Also Like

“Paradise Isle by Stewart Stafford In superstitious guidance, I discovered your shallows, Ingénues' on naked dunes, Edenites of Paradise Isle. Tragedy and chance are but pirates; One welcome, both shocking rogues, Am I a castaway or a sleepwalker? Let motivations as explorers gather. Leaving footprints only we can see, The wet sand, a camouflage ally, We quit the beach and head inland, As crabs in shade to the waterline crawl. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

“It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision [in Bush v. Gore]. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is pellucidly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”

“Mephistopheles' contentious, often ambiguous relationship to Faustus is a reference to tantra just as it is to alchemy. It resembles the shifting tactics of a guru who varies his approach to his pupil in order to dissolve his resistances and prepare him for wider states of consciousness. Both Faustus and the tantric aspirant stimulate and indulge their senses under the guidance of their teachers who encourage them to have sexual encounters with women in their dreams. Both work with magical diagrams or yantras, exhibit extraordinary will, "fly" on visionary journeys, acquire powers of teleportation, invisibility, prophecy, and healing, and have ritual intercourse with women whom they visualize as goddesses. The tantrist [sic] is said to become omniscient as a result of his sacred "marriage," and Faustus produces an omniscient child in his union with the visualized Helen, or Sophia.”

“Yet the freedom of the artist, the pure beauty of nature, and the liberty of each of us to live our lives as we choose are still under threat—and despite all our progress, this threat may be greater now than in many years. The slave religions have used the weapons of fear, guilt, superstition, greed, terror and paranoia to achieve significant gains in political, ideological, and cultural power during recent decades, notably in the forms of militant Islamic fundamentalism and Christian dominionism. It takes strength to stand in defense of beauty, truth and freedom, and strength requires unity. Even while we celebrate our diversity and individuality with justified exuberance, it is critical that we remember those principles we hold in common, and those things we owe to each other as brothers and sisters of this, our Holy Order.”

“Parts of rural China are seeing a burgeoning market for female corpses, the result of the reappearance of a strange custom called "ghost marriages." Chinese tradition demands that husbands and wives always share a grave. Sometimes, when a man died unmarried, his parents would procure the body of a woman, hold a "wedding," and bury the couple together... A black market has sprung up to supply corpse brides. Marriage brokers—usually respectable folk who find brides for village men—account for most of the middlemen. At the bottom of the supply chain come hospital mortuaries, funeral parlors, body snatchers—and now murderers. —"China's Corpse Brides: Wet Goods and Dry Goods" The Economist, July 26, 2007”

“In one respect, though, the Court received unfair criticism for Bush v. Gore—from those who said the justices in the majority "stole the election" for Bush. Rather, what the Court did was remove any uncertainty about the outcome. It is possible that if the Court had ruled fairly—or better yet, not taken the case at all—Gore would have won the election. A recount might have led to a Gore victory in Florida. It is also entirely possible that, had the Court acted properly and left the resolution of the election to the Florida courts, Bush would have won anyway. The recount of the 60,000 undervotes might have resulted in Bush's preserving his lead. The Florida legislature, which was controlled by Republicans, might have stepped in and awarded the state's electoral votes to Bush. And if the dispute had wound up in the House of Representatives, which has the constitutional duty to resolve controversies involving the Electoral College, Bush might have won there, too. The tragedy of the Court's performance in the election of 2000 was not that it led to Bush's victory but the inept and unsavory manner with which the justices exercised their power.”