We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, "What is real?" Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power, that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. ~Philip K. Dick
#quotes #philip-k-dick #society #government #media #religion
quotistBirds in their little nests agree; And 'tis a shameful sight when children of one family fall out, and chide, and fight. ~Isaac Watts
#quotes #isaac-watts #children #fighting
Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism. ~Benazir Bhutto
#quotes #benazir-bhutto #extremism #government #society
Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it. ~Marie de Rabutin Chantal
#quotes #marquise-de-sevigne #marie-de-rabutin-chantal #feelings
Once I saw my parents argue because we didn't have a lot of money anymore. So, I did what I had to do. I got my piggy bank and I went out to the backyard and buried it. ~Jack Handey
#quotes #jack-handey #family #money
I think with anything where you delve into the back story of an artist, it kind of explains their work more intimately. ~Aaron Taylor Johnson
#quotes #aaron-taylor-johnson #work #artist
All the seven deadly sins are self destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least, lust and gluttony, averice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape. ~Angus Wilson
#quotes #angus-wilson #pride #sin
The unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg
#quotes #verlyn-klinkenborg
Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone. ~Martha Nibley Beck
#quotes #martha-nibley-beck #thinking #optimism #appreciation #hope
It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian "wall of separation" between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church. ~Jon Meacham
#quotes #jon-meacham #religious #christianity #politics #united-states
Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die. ~Daniel Burnham
#quotes #daniel-burnham #architecture #work #hope
Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty. ~Henry Ward Beecher
#quotes #henry-ward-beecher #society #law #humanity #government
A human heart that matched what we think of as heart-shaped; a perfectly formed bright red thing with two halves of equal size; would be one that was horribly diseased. The origin of this stylized representation is somewhat obscure, but it probably appeared at the same time as St. Valentine's Day, about whose history there is much dispute. ~George Fetherling
#quotes #george-fetherling #heart #valentines
Three things see no end. A flower blighted ere it bloomed. A message that was wasted. And a journey that was doomed. ~Mercedes Lackey
#quotes #mercedes-lackey #flower
As proud as a peacock. ~Proverb
#proverbs
proverbiosI got into real estate very much by accident. ~Jeff Greene
#quotes #jeff-greene #estate
Nothing like the road to rub all the sand out of your soul. ~John Clellon Holmes
#quotes #john-clellon-holmes #soul
He who eats alone, coughs alone. ~Arabic Proverb
#proverbs #arabic-proverbs
It had run as a column; I had worked at the paper since 1976, but the column had been running for 13 years, and I think it was a strong column, criticizing the war when the paper was supporting it. ~Robert Scheer
#quotes #robert-scheer #war
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds. ~Emile Durkheim
#quotes #emile-durkheim #society #mind
I don't think I'm unlike a lot of people. I am just someone who is trying to find that mate, and I think it's a really hard thing to do. ~Halle Berry
#quotes #halle-berry #search
Don't be sweet, lest you be eaten up; don't be bitter, lest you be spewed out. ~Jewish Proverb
#proverbs #jewish-proverbs
I realized that even in a world of proliferating media venues, online and in print, and on TV and on countless cable channels, the idea that I could be considered an expert on chronic knee pain was I think troubling for society, but very exciting for me. ~John Hodgman
#quotes #john-hodgman #thinking #media
In those dark times, one rose to the very heights of humanity by simply remaining human. ~Elie Wiesel
#quotes #elie-wiesel #darkness #humanity
It's hard to maintain both smack and crack habits and remember to keep up mobile-phone payments. ~Irvine Welsh
#quotes #irvine-welsh #remember #phones
Authors are far closer to the truths enfolded in mystery than ordinary people, because of that very audacity of imagination which irritates their plodding critics. As only those who dare to make mistakes succeed greatly, only those who shake free the wings of their imagination brush, once in a way, the secrets of the great pale world. If such writers go wrong, it is not for the mere brains to tell them so ~Gertrude Atherton
#quotes #gertrude-atherton #writing #reality