#aria

We do foreign assistance for altruistic reasons, certainly for humanitarian reasons, of course. But the main reason we do foreign assistance is we do it in the American national interest. ↗

— Roger Wicker

#american #assistance #certainly #course #foreign

I believe that the military-industrial state will eventually collapse, possibly even in our lifetime, and that a majority of us (if prepared) will muddle through to a freer, more open, less crowded, green and spacious agrarian society. (Maybe; of course it may be only a repeat of the middle ages.) ↗

— Edward Abbey

#collapse-of-industry #future #age

How they are all about, these gentlemen In chamberlains' apparel, stocked and laced, Like night around their order's star and gem And growing ever darker, stony-faced, And these, their ladies, fragile, wan, but propped High by their bodice, one hand loosely dropped, Small like its collar, on the toy King-Charles: How they surround each one of these who stopped To read and contemplate the objects d'art, Of which some pieces still are theirs, not ours. Whit exquisite decorum they allow us A life of whose dimensions we seem sure And which they cannot grasp. They were alive To bloom, that is be fair; we, to mature, That is to be of darkness and to strive. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#introspection #maturity #poetry #rainer-maria-rilke #rilke

This is the body's nurse; but since man's wit Found the art of cookery, to delight his sense, More bodies are consumed and kill'd with it Than with the sword, famine, or pestilence. ↗

— John Davies of Hereford

#eating #famine #food #meat-is-murder #pestilence

I'm just the librarian. I can only give you the books. I can't give you the answers. ↗

— Kami Garcia

#ya-teen-fiction #beauty

It's hard to imagine a place like that really exists. People have been judging me my whole life. ↗

— Kami Garcia

#beautiful-darkness #eathan-wate #john #kami-garcia #lena

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#government #innocence #law #libertarian #men

Destiny is variable, not fixed; it is forever changing depending upon your free will to make choices for what you want your life to be. ↗

— Steven Redhead

#choices #depending #destiny #fixed #free-will

O [Roman] people be ashamed; be ashamed of your lives. Almost no cities are free of evil dens, are altogether free of impurities, except the cities in which the barbarians have begun to live... Let nobody think otherwise, the vices of our bad lives have alone conquered us... The Goths lie, but are chaste, the Franks lie, but are but are generous, the Saxons are savage in cruelty...but are admirable in chastity...what hope can there be [for the Romans] when the barbarians are more pure [than they]?" -Salvian ↗

— William J Federer

#barbarians #dual-meaning #evil #evil-men #evil-people

Pains are not to be relieved Sorrows are not to fade away a slight change in the vision may bring a new experience ↗

— Rixa White

#experience #oceans-of-illusion #pain #silentaria #sorrow