The hills yonder

"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could."

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Walks of Life

"The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life -- the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)

Hngng tgthr

"You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you're the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. You're his responsibility now and he's yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he won't. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time?"

Jane Smiley, novelist (b.1949)

Wrong kind of feeling

"The worst kind of people are those who confuse kindness for weakness."

Werner Makowski, banker (b. 1929)

Construction

"Death destroys the body, as the scaffolding is destroyed after the building is up and finished. And he whose building is up rejoices at the destruction of the scaffolding and of the body."

Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Deep bright

"Where the light is brightest, the shadows are deepest."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Poor on the moor

"I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of a country, one has to go there poor."

Grace Moore, actress and singer (1898-1947)

Simply be

"Nature never said to me: Do not be poor. Still less did she say: Be rich. Her cry to me was always: Be independent."

Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)

Scotophobia

"The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night."

Astral America (1988)

Jean Baudrillard, sociologist and philosopher (1929-2007)

Baudrillard time

« On ne parle de clonage qu'en termes biologiques. Or il a déjà été précédé par un clonage mental : le système de l'école permet de fabriquer des êtres qui deviennent une copie conforme les uns des autres.  »

in “Le Monde de l'éducation” - Octobre 1999

« La gloire auprès du peuple, voilà à quoi il faut aspirer. Rien ne vaudra jamais le regard éperdu de la charcutière qui vous a vu à la télévision.  »

« Le plaisir de l'eau sur les lèvres est supérieur à celui de boire.  »

« Jadis il fallait craindre de mourir dans le déshonneur, ou dans le péché. Aujourd'hui, il faut craindre de mourir idiot.  »

« Pourquoi la débilité des débiles est-elle devenue un fait de culture, alors que le fait bien plus épouvantable de la bêtise ordinaire ne bouleverse personne ?  »

« Rien n'emplit mieux une main qu'un sein.  »

Cool Memories – 1980-1985