“After the sacrifice of value, after the sacrifice of representation, after the sacrifice of reality, the West is now characterized by the deliberate sacrifice of everything through which a human being keeps some value in his or her own eyes.
The terrorists' potlatch against the West is their own death. Our potlatch is indignity, immodesty, obscenity, degradation and abjection. This is the movement of our culture - where the stakes keep rising. Our truth is always on the side of unveiling, desublimation, reductive analysis - the truth of the repressed -- exhibition, avowal, nudity - nothing is true unless it is desecrated, objectified, stripped of its aura, or dragged onstage.”
Source: The Agony of Power
“Light doesn't say 'o look at me, I am so bright' - all it does is shine.”
Source: Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine
“When I was small, my mother told me that moths were butterflies that had been banished to the night, where they lived tortured lives dreaming of the day. In this way she explained why they sacrificed themselves to flame; it was both an end to their suffering and a reunion with the light they longed for.
The parable, of course, was meant to warn me against wanting what I should not have.”
Source: Burning Marguerite
“Yamamoto sensed a feeling of culmination about the huge success of the first strike, and the same incisive intuition that guided his brilliant moves at the gaming tables told him what the next move on the bridge of Akagi would be. In (Vice Admiral) Nagumo he knew his man. Nagumo had never been committed to the Pearl Harbor mission. He had not been Yamamoto’s choice to command the Striking Force; his assignment was the decision of the Navy Ministry in Tokyo, based on seniority. While the exultation of the officers and sailors on his staff swirled around him, Yamamoto sat quietly. Finally, he fixed a steely gaze on his chief of staff, and in a low, intense voice: “Admiral Nagumo is going to withdraw.”
Source: Diplomats & Admirals: From Failed Negotiations and Tragic Misjudgments to Powerful Leaders and Heroic Deeds, the Untold Story of the Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway
“Could not God just forgive us without having to hurt something or someone?”
“Unless a bunch of lionhearts are sleepless for society, the society can never sleep in peace.”
Source: Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine
“The integrity of the society is predicated on the sacrifice of a handful of lionhearts and on the everyday accountability of the rest of the humans.”
Source: Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine
“The sun doesn't run out of light by giving it to the world for free, for the very purpose of the sun's existence is to give light. A true human is no less than a living sun in the society, whose very purpose in life is to give light.”
Source: Servitude is Sanctitude
“If you want to transition from your lower self to your higher self, a sacrifice is demanded. Everything has a cost. The greatest things have the greatest cost. Most people will never pay the price, hence they never become great.”
Source: Holenmerism and Nullibism: The Two Faces of the Holographic Universe
“It is a promise that I ask of you - a promise that no matter the time and age you'll never lose sight of your humanity - you'll never be too immersed in your own comfort to help out those in misery around you. If you can make this promise, not to me mark you but to yourself, then I'll know that I've achieved absolution.”
Source: Sleepless for Society