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Vonnegut on Public Discourse, Here and Elsewhere


satori001
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Your opinion doesn't matter.*

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

(*only for this thread, if you can bear it)

You are welcome to post relevant quotations which speak to your opinion, and a brief description of their originator. Bible quotations are probably unavoidable, but keep them brief - they should be insights, not "teachings." Let your quotes do your speaking, but not your thinking, for you.

The proceeding proceed from Kurt Vonnegut.

---

On with the quotes:

"There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

"She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."

"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."

"That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes."

"So it goes." -- expansion on this phrase: "Sh1t happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to."

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."

Edited by satori001
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nice thread

a few from David Bohm...

Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. We havent really paid much attention to thought as a process. we have engaged in thoughts, but we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process.
During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts. Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale...
"The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw
“When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’

Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’

Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say:

'Anyway, it is not new.’”

--William James (1842-1910)

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“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

and

“I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference!”

~Albert Einstein~

Edited by doojable
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"Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next--and on and on."

- Galapagos

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“Every man is a fool in some [other] man's opinion” Spanish Proverb

-

“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.” Oscar Wilde

-

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion” Democritus

-

“If you don't like my opinion of you, you can always improve” Ashleigh Brilliant

“Strange as it may seem, my life is based on a true story” Ashleigh Brilliant

Edited by satori001
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"Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway."

Elbert Hubbard

:eusa_clap: :eusa_clap: :eusa_clap:

“Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don't Matter and Those Who Matter Don't Mind.”

Usually attributed to Dr. Seuss.

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The following quotes are taken from an essay by Audre Lorde entitled "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action".

Lorde wrote the essay shortly after she was faced with the diagnosis of breast cancer:

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared,

even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect.

In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be,

priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences.

Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death.

But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end.

Death, on the other hand, is the final silence.

We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired.

For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence

for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt

to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?

My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.

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