What good

If we can't be good without God,
then what good are we?

One of the facts

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common:  They don’t change their views to fit the facts.  They change the facts to fit their views.  Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs changing.

The Fourth Doctor, Doctor Who

On culture

Culture is always too small.

New poems

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To be more than I am (Prather)

As I look back on my life, one of the most constant and powerful things I have experienced within myself is the desire to be more than I am at the moment—an unwillingness to let myself remain where I am—a desire to increase the boundaries of myself—a desire to do more, learn more, express more—a desire to grow, improve, accomplish, expand.  I used to interpret this inner push as meaning that there was some one thing out there I wanted to do or be or have.  And I have spent too much of my life trying to find it.  But now I know that this energy within me is seeking more than the mate or the profession or the religion, more even than pleasure or power or meaning.  It is seeking out more of me…

Hugh Prather, Notes To Myself:  My Struggle To Become A Person

People

People are the worst mirrors, the best mirages.

Just one thing (Prather)

To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just one thing in life, would kill off large parts of me.

Hugh Prather, Notes To Myself:  My Struggle To Become A Person

On memory

Memory is the doorstep of oblivion.

How much

How much of preference is mere familiarity?

The miracle

The miracle is that miracles don't occur.

Nothing (Goethe)

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

New poems

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On honor

The greatest dishonor is in thinking there is honor in war.

Victory

Demoralize your enemy, and you are within a breath's length of victory.

So it goes

Much is teased; nothing is promised.

On democracy (Older)

Democracy is of limited usefulness when there are no good choices, or when the good choices become bad as soon as you've chosen them...

Malka Older, Infomocracy

On humility

Humility is humiliating.

How (Wright)

How are we capable of so much love
for things that must fall away?

Charles Wright, from "December Journal"

The best I can (Tolstoy)

I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

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How long

How long we fight to save those parts of us already lost!

Settlers

Those who long for passion
often settle for fervor.

Better

Better to embrace a ghost than its corpse.

Timing

If everything is true, at times,
and everything is false, at other times,
and sometimes at the same time,
then perhaps the most important thing
we can study is timing.

The most terrible things (Zinn)

Historically, the most terrible things—war, genocide, and slavery—have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.

Howard Zinn

Chorizo & eggs, in process

New poems

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A defeat

To speak of the enemy already contains a defeat,
but who can resist it?

Keep going (Rilke)

Let everything happen to you:  beauty and      terror.
Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Go To The Limits Of Your Longing"

On wisdom

The pinnacle of wisdom is to not just know
but to choose the wiser course.

The worst

Insincerity is the worst offense against both the other and the self.

Better

'Tis better to have part of the all than all of the part.