#be

There's no such thing as coincidences, only incidences with a twist. ↗

— Leanore Elliott

#erotic-paranormal-romance #sexy-hit-men #the-beholder #men

Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#death

Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons. ↗

— Criss Jami

#backwards #clever #confusion #conservatism #conservative

أيتها المرأة الشرقية إن الذين ينادون باسمك ويدعون إلى مساواتك بالرجل إنما يضحكون عليك، فقد ضحكوا علينا من قبلك. ↗

— فرانسواز ساجان

#men #women-s-liberation #men

As it happened, I didn't grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I want to hear. ↗

— Joan Didion

#love

The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds. ↗

— Walpola Rahula

#labels #names #philosophy #prejudice #prejudices

Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist. ↗

— Charles Kingsley

#dinosaurs #dragons #impossible #wisdom #men

But Tik Tok believes everything's circular, including men and women. He says nature seems to go around and around, and that we all have bits of everything. ↗

— Jodi Lynn Anderson

#circular #gender #nature #tiger-lily #men

Strange star-like object over Oslo right before Obama arrives. A gift of a golden medal given by a group of wise men... Nah. ↗

— Craig Ferguson

#nobel-prize #obama #sacrilege #men

I tell you, lad, that men will believe is one says, "The Gods say..." They will believe if one says, "I had a Vision..." They will believe if one says, "It was told me on a tablet of hidden gold..." But, if one says, "History teaches," then they will not believe.

— Sheri S. Tepper

#history #lessons #prophecies #religion #truth