#racy

Democracy: when artists lose patronage and are simply patronized. This is the case everywhere except America, where true art has never existed, and democracy has recently followed suit. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#art #democracy #funny #art

Everybody has a right to be defended, and every lawyer has a duty to defend people accused. And my office is to defend him, to discuss the accusation point by point, as I think this is a normal step in a democracy. ↗

— Jacques Verges

#accused #defend #defended #democracy #discuss

They went inside. The young ones shuffled to a stop as their ironic sensibilities, which served them in lieu of souls, were jammed by a signal of overwhelming power. ↗

— Neal Stephenson

#generations #humor #humor

Because it was enough for one of those favorites of His Distinguished Highness to issue a thoughtless decree. These young smart alecks see it, and they immediately imagine some fatal result and come running to the rescue. They start trying to mend things, straighten things out, patch things up and untangle them. And so instead of using their energy to build their own vision of the future, instead of trying to put their irresponsible, destructive fantasies into action, our malcontents had to roll up their sleeves and start untangling what the minsters had knotted up. And there's always a lot of work to untangling! So they untangle and untangle, drenched in sweat, wearing their nerves to shreds, running around, patching things up here and there, and in all this rush and overwork, in this whirlwind, their fantasies slowly evaporate from their hot heads. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuściński

#imagination

What is all this? Get him out of here, devil take me!” And that one, imagine, smiles and says: “Devil take you? That, in fact, can be done!” And—bang! ↗

— Mikhail Bulgakov

#devil #irony #imagination

My bursting heart must find vent at my pen. ↗

— Abigail Adams

#inspiring #literacy #women #writing #inspirational

We will not let terrorists change our way of life; we will not live in fear; and we will not undermine the civil liberties that characterize our Democracy. ↗

— Adam Schiff

#characterize #civil #civil liberties #democracy #fear

There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book. ↗

— Frank Serafini

#literacy #reading #inspirational

In a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen ↗

— Louis Brandeis

#inspirational #politics #inspirational

Objective truth is difficult to come by, and even if you have it, what you can pass on to the next person is the story that you tell about it. In order for truth to be recognized as true, it has to be wrapped in plausibility. Just the same as lies. ("Another Word: Plausibility and Truth ↗

— Daniel Abraham

#democracy-gone-wrong #lies #truth #truth-and-lies #truth-inspirational