Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
1 2 3 ▲ ▼
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
d9b616d "Recall Marx's fundamental insight about the "bourgeois" limitation of the logic of equality: capitalist inequalities ("exploitation") are not the "unprincipled violations of the principle of equality," but are absolutely inherent to the logic of equality, they are the paradoxical result of its consistent realization. What we have in mind here is not only the wearisome old motif of how market exchange presupposes formally/legally equal subjects who meet and interact in the market; the crucial moment of Marx's critique of "bourgeois" socialists is that capitalist exploitation does not involve any kind of "unequal" exchange between the worker and the capitalist--this exchange is fully equal and "just," ideally (in principle), the worker gets paid the full value of the commodity he is selling (his labor-power). Of course, radical bourgeois revolutionaries are aware of this limitation; however, the way they try to counteract it is through a direct "terroristic imposition of more and more de facto equality (equal salaries, equal access to health services...), which can only be imposed through new forms of formal inequality (different sorts of preferential treatments for the underprivileged). In short, the axiom of equality" means either not enough (it remains the abstract form of actual inequality) or too much (enforce "terroristic" equality)-- it is a formalistic notion in a strict dialectical sense, that is, its limitation is precisely that its form is not concrete enough, but a mere neutral container of some content that eludes this form." equality freedom marx terror Slavoj Žižek
d3e147e Ich will doch sehen, wer mich halt, - wer mich zwingt, - wer der Mensch ist, der einen Menschen zwingen kann. freedom liberation Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
b424ec3 Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but 'created equal' was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if 'all men' did not truly mean all men. equality slavery freedom united-states-of-america Colson Whitehead
9156d9d "The freedom of our people is more important!" Julie says fiercely. "We will never stop fighting, never stop working for what is right!" Jack just smiles at her. "That's a nice lie to believe," he says." lies freedom Beth Revis
25d43ce It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things! racism equality slavery freedom empathy compassion humanity politics religion Harriet Beecher Stowe
4e2599f "In the mid-thirties, a young black poet named Langston Hughes wrote a poem, "Let America Be America Again": . . . I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek- And finding only the same old stupid plan. Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. . . . O, let America be America again- The land that never has been yet- And yet must be-the land where every man is free. The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's ME- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure call me any ugly name you choose- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! . . ." poem freedom Howard Zinn
2ace62c " freedom science pauling william-astbury william-thomas-astbury x-ray-crystallographer linus-pauling chemistry physics J.D. Bernal
79c6de4 "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you." freedom work dreams happiness control goals Timothy Ferriss
0829536 "Xerxes, I read, 'halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contemplate to his satisfaction' the beauty of a single sycamore. You are Xerxes in Persia. Your army spreads on a vast and arid peneplain...you call to you all your sad captains, and give the order to halt. You have seen the tree with the lights in it, haven't you? You must have. Xerxes buffeted on a plain, ambition drained in a puff. Your men are bewildered...there is nothing to catch the eye in this flatness, nothing but a hollow, hammering sky, a waste of sedge in the lee of windblown rocks, a meager ribbon of scrub willow tracing a slumbering watercourse...and that sycamore. You saw it; you will stand rapt and mute, exalted, remembering or not remembering over a period of days to shade your head with your robe. "He had its form wrought upon a medal of gold to help him remember it the rest of his life." We all ought to have a goldsmith following us around. But it goes without saying, doesn't it, Xerxes, that no gold medal worn around your neck will bring back the glad hour, keep those lights kindled so long as you live, forever present? Pascal saw it; he grabbed pen and paper and scrawled the one word, and wore it sewn in his shirt the rest of his life. I don't know what Pascal saw. I saw a cedar. Xerxes saw a sycamore." fate seeing free light poem prayer nature poetry freedom joy spirit wonder faith beauty religion science god philosophy enoughness exultant illumination intricacy joyfulness living-in-the-present-moment religious-diversity stalking-the-gaps the-tree-with-the-lights-in-it gaps philosopher-s-stone multiplicity praying prayers hallelujah life-force seeking exploration praise joyful mindfulness epiphany tolerance grace energy disbelief watching growth belief fearless humility consciousness walking fire mystery curiosity power soul poet creation Annie Dillard
d85e190 A promise is a direction taken, a self-limitation of choice. As Odo pointed out, if no direction is taken, if one goes nowhere, no change will occur. One's freedom to choose and to change will be unused, exactly as if one were in jail, a jail of one's own building, a maze in which no one way is better than any other. freedom inspirational-attitude change carpe-diem Ursula K. Le Guin
e9e3df0 Joan has a right to love whom she likes, and to go where she likes and to work and be independent and happy, and if she can't be happy then she has a right to make her own unhappiness; it's a thousand times better to be unhappy in your own way than to be happy in someone else's. unhappiness happy independence freedom happiness love unhappy Radclyffe Hall
29ecdf7 She supposed it felt like freedom, if freedom was a fall into the unknown. freedom J.V. Jones
239745a The men and women who forged this nation [USA] were straight-up maniacs about freedom. It was just about the only thing they cared about, so they jammed it into everything. This is understandable, as they were breaking away from a monarchy. But it's also a little bonkers, since one of the things they desired most desperately was freedom of religion, based on the premise that Europe wasn't religious and that they needed the freedom to live by non-secular laws that were more restrictive than that of any government, including provisions for the burning of suspected witches. freedom establishment-of-religion freedom-of-religion religious-freedom religious-intolerance theocracy hypocrisy tyranny religious-extremism Chuck Klosterman
636ca8f She gazed up at the buildings and imagined angels perched on the edge of the roofs; tall slender angels with drooping wings; standing in perfect silence, watching her without expectation as if in an eternal dream: We give you the city. No one is watching. Set yourself free. freedom Robert Crais
fa86ae4 Existentialism, in both its Continental and its Anglo-Saxon versions, is an attempt to solve the problem without really facing it: to solve it by attributing to the individual an empty, lonely freedom, a freedom, if he wishes, to 'fly in the face of the facts'. What it pictures is indeed the fearful solitude of the individual marooned upon a tiny island in the middle of a sea of scientific facts, and morality escaping from science only by a wild leap of the will. But our situation is not like this. freedom Iris Murdoch
7807bc4 Let us concede at the outset that, in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Thus we should not be surprised that there is a considerable amount of vice, licentiousness, and vulgarity in a free society. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom is simply an expression of human flaws and weaknesses. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. freedom d-souza Dinesh D'Souza
aa7b230 "I want the freedom to mess up," I say. Just once, I want to be the one who's allowed to screw up. I want the freedom to choose. Right now, I have no choice. I have to be this way. But one day, I'll be free. I'll be be able to live my life without having to be perfect. I'll be able to do anything I want - or nothing at all. I'll wander around aimlessly. I'll make mistakes. I won't worry about being safe, being perfect." perfection freedom wander safe Beth Revis
0d74681 The fall of the Berlin Wall on 11/9/89 unleashed forces that ultimately liberated all the captive peoples of the Soviet Empire freedom soviet-union russia Thomas L. Friedman
48f17c5 You're going to turn it into a fascist corporate theme park where the few people who can still afford the price of admission no longer have an ounce of freedom. freedom fascist-corporate-ideals ready-player-one Ernest Cline
47b80d0 To a life of quiet desperation... and not leading it. wealth freedom life witty quiet desperation Rebecca McNutt
3d94832 Mi piace il modo in cui i gatti amano stare un po' dentro e un po' fuori, per assecondare sia il loro lato domestico sia quello selvatico, e anch'io mi sento selvatica e domestica. Posso stare in casa, ma solo se la porta e aperta. freedom gatti gatto housewarming libertà cat cats Jeanette Winterson
163ba2e How could such a bitter thing become a means of pleasure? Everything on Valentine was the opposite. Work needn't be suffering, it could unite folks. A bright child like Chester might thrive and prosper, as Molly and her friends did. A mother raise her daughter with love and kindness. A beautiful soul like Caesar could be anything he wanted here, all of them could be: own a spread, be a schoolteacher, fight for colored rights. Even be a poet. In her Georgia misery she had pictured freedom, and it had not looked like this. Freedom was a community laboring for something lovely and rare. freedom indiana valentine Colson Whitehead
9b59dae "Our liberation comes through a person, not a system of ideas and principles. "Everything we need for life and godliness" ultimately comes "through our knowledge of Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:3)." freedom scripture Edward T. Welch
444c359 I have come to understand that the act of creating, 'Life is a Bicycle', was an act of freedom - self-determined freedom. freedom Garry Fitchett
4d34515 "Num trabalho honesto", costumava dizer [Bartholomew Roberts], "o que se ve e gente magra, salarios baixos e muito trabalho. Neste daqui, o que temos e fartura e saciedade, prazer e alegria, liberdade e poder. E quem nao iria fazer o prato da balanca pesar para este lado, quando tudo o que se arrisca daqui, na pior das hipoteses, e apenas um olhar ou dois de tristeza, no instante em que se sufoca? Nao, meu lema sera sempre por uma vida feliz e curta." freedom liberdade pirates Daniel Defoe
92a8954 Our rate of conductivity is probably determined by an ability, learned or innate, to make the foreground into the background, so that the distractions of the everyday no longer take up our energy. Monks and contemplatives have tried to achieve this by withdrawing from the world---utter concentration, trance-like concentration, is what is needed. Passion, delirium, meditation, even out-of-body, are words we use to describe the heightened condition of superconductivity. It is certainly true that a criterion for true art, as opposed to its cunning counterfeit, is its ability to take us where the artist has been, to this other different place where we are free from the problems of gravity. When we are drawn into the art we are drawn out of ourselves. We are no longer bound by matter, matter has become what it is: empty space and light. freedom inspiration mediation Jeanette Winterson
6127008 I create a home that is a safe and nurturing place for me, where I am free to gather myself. freedom home-sweet-home personal-safety safe-and-secure soul-journey healing-journey home safety Maureen Brady
08420a5 I am offered the Grand Inquisitor's choice. Will you choose freedom without happiness, or happiness without freedom? The only answer one can make, I think, is: No. freedom happiness utopia resistance Ursula K. Le Guin
e31b4a9 You have enough courage to face even your greatest fear. courage freedom fear strength passages-malibu fearless quotes self-help Chris Prentiss
31562b3 As best she could, in her secluded position, she was considering how she might secure further choices, and what they might be -- once this, her first free choice, had played itself out. freedom Cynthia Voigt
364dc79 t can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation. We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster. freedom compassion politics institutionalized-racism James Baldwin
3f7bed1 "...the social conscience completely dominates the individual conscience, instead of striking a balance with it. We don't cooperate--we . We fear being outcast, being called lazy, dysfunctional, egoizing. We fear ur neighbor's opinion more than we respect our own freedom of choice. freedom culture Ursula K. Le Guin
189c935 The implications of the true story are existential and corrosive to our larger national myth. To understand that the most costly war in this country's history was launched in direct opposition to everything the country claims to be, to understand that this war was the product of centuries of enslavement, which is to see an even longer, more total war, is to alter the accepted conception of America as a beacon of freedom. How does one face this truth or forge a national identity out of it? racism war slavery freedom race-relations race mythology Ta-Nehisi Coates
f1f15d6 Why, Mr. Anderson?, Why, why?. Why do you do it? Why, why get up?. Why keep fighting?. Do you believe you're fighting...for something?. For more than your survival?. Can you tell me what it is?. Do you even know?; Is it freedom?, Or truth?. Perhaps peace?. Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although... only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now, You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson?. Why?, Why do you persist?. Agent Smith ( Matrix Revolutions Movie, 2003 ). existence passion freedom persistence love truth why-we-live illusions matrix why perception human-beings survival survival-instinct win fight William Irwin
1 2 3 ▲ ▼