#pit

[There] are people who make a complete and utter mockery of 'democracy' and 'equality' - they're the casualties of the primitive rules of competition which run our society, and the welfare state just keeps them alive. That's all. ↗

— Michael Palin

#competition #democracy #equality #poor #poverty

At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#capitalism #corporations #dam #economics #environmental-degradation

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door. ↗

— William Blake

#innocence #pity #william-blake #experience

We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to be a synonym for agony that isn't yours. ↗

— Lionel Shriver

#hospital #medicine #pain #experience

Experience has taught us that material wants know no natural bounds, that they will expand without end unless we consciously restrain them. Capitalism rests precisely on this endless expansion of wants. That is why, for all its success, it remains so unloved. It has given us wealth beyond measure, but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of having enough. ↗

— Robert Skidelsky Edward Skidelsky

#economics #wants #wealth #experience

In a capitalist world, the word capital has taken on more and more uses. . . . human capital, for instance, which is what labor accumulates through education and work experience. Human capital differs from the classic kind in that you can't inherit it, and it can only be rented, not bought or sold. ↗

— Kim Stanley Robinson

#employment #slavery #education

Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow. Awareness of others is a healthy antidote to this self-focus. ↗

— Kevin Malarkey

#inspirational #self-pity #inspirational

A trip to the cancer unit of any pediatric hospital will tell you that the Law of Attraction doesn't work. Some angels are so bright, brave and valiant that God gave them the hardest lives when they chose to come to earth. They don't need to pray to be saved because they already are. ↗

— Shannon L. Alder

#cancer #cancer-patients #children #circumstances #faith

Dad...you did it? (Shocked but keeping voice down) You did it to the others? You sent out a hundred and twenty cracked engine-heads and let those boys die! How could you do that? How? (Voice rises with anger) Dad...Dad, you killed twenty-one men! You killed them, you murdered them. (Becomes more furious) Explain it to me. Explain to me how you do it? What did you do? (Pause) Explain it to me goddammit or I will tear you to pieces! I want to know what you did, now what did you do? You had a hundred and twenty cracked engine-heads, now what did you do? Why'd you ship them out in the first place? If you knew they were cracked, then why didn't you tell them? ↗

— Arthur Miller

#kapitalisme #responsability #war #anger

Here's to real heroes, not the ones who carry us off into the sunset but the ones who help us choose our princes." - commentary on Castles on the Sand ↗

— Emily Mah Tippetts

#brothers #castles-on-the-sand #fairytale #family #hero