Vonnegut on Public Discourse, Here and Elsewhere

[sirguessalot]

“When we split solitude and community into an either-or and act as if we can get along with only one or the other, we put ourselves in spiritual peril. . . . We have much to learn from within, but it is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of the inner life. We have much to learn from others, but it is easy to get lost in the confusion of the crowd. So we need solitude and community simultaneously: what we learn in one mode can check and balance what we learn in the other. Together, they make us whole, like breathing in and breathing out.”

...Parker Palmer

“You have experiences in the practice – peace, joy, transformation, and healing – and on that foundation, you help other people.”

...Thich Nhat Hanh

“Let the person who cannot be alone beware of community. Let the person who is not in community beware of being alone.”

...Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We are not wounded alone nor do we heal alone.”

...St. Columba

[excathedra]

“We are not wounded alone nor do we heal alone.”

...St. Columba

[doojable]

“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”

~St. Francis of Assisi~

[J0nny Ling0]

"When the exigencies of the improperly ordered universe collide with unknown stimuli, it becomes near impossible for one to differentiate between the polarization of the known universe and those that await us. Therefore, we must endeavor to persevere..."

Dr. Jonny Lingo-PHD/Associate Degree in Practical Theology-Way C. of E.

Edited January 19, 2008 by Jonny Lingo

[J0nny Ling0]

Dark waves roll in and crest on desolate shores. The suffocating mists of autumn twilight haunt the bleak coast, concealing the vengeful wraiths of the fallen. There is a palpable tension in the air; an indrawn breath held in anxious suspense for the climactic moment of release. As darkness falls, a deep rumbling suffuses the earth, something felt rather than heard. Off shore, deep below the surface of the waves, there lies an ancient evil patiently biding it's time in stygian depths. In black waters, surpassing the deepest midnight, there stirs something darker still. Driven by a sinister will, the beast surges upward, it's power proceeding it in a ebon wave of foul desire. Breaking the surface, it unleashes an otherworldly challenge of tyranny and triumph. Death rides the midnight tide.

`

Keanu Lingo-Age 20 From his MySpace blog...

[excathedra]

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant."

--Amos Bronson Alcott

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"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact."

--George Eliot

[Linda Z]

From the starter of this thread:

All of the quotes are interesting or entertaining on their own merit, but not all of them seem to pertain to "public discourse" in any direct way.

I would like this thread to allow you to step outside of yourself, and look back at an all too familiar topic from someone else's POV, that might speak to or for your own, and also to look at others' points of view through their own quotations.

[lovematters]

"Measures for improving management of the economic structure should be, must be considered a most important reserve, whose use will help to successfully fulfill the Tenth Five-Year Plan and produce an effect in the immediate future"

Leonid Brezhnev to the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

"There are organizing principles in the universe which we can no more understand than my dog can."

Vonnegut

[2fortheroad]

"Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language."

Ursula K. LeGuin

[2fortheroad]

"There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus." ~ Mark Twain