Barndominium Quotes & Sayings

Years ago I predicted that these suffragettes, tried out by victory, would turn out to be idiots. They are now hard at work proving it. Half of them devote themselves to advocating reforms, chiefly of a sexual character, so utterly preposterous that even male politicians and newspaper editors laugh at them; the other half succumb absurdly to the blandishments of the old-time male politicians, and so enroll themselves in the great political parties. A woman who joins one of these parties simply becomes an imitation man, which is to say, a donkey. — H.L. Mencken

It is beyond dispute that the state exercises very great power over human life and it always shows a tendency to go beyond the limits laid down for it. — Nikolai Berdyaev

In the evenings in bed, with the light out, I tried to picture death, the "most nothing of all." In imagination I suppressed all the circumstances of my life and I felt gripped in ever tighter circles of panic. There was no longer any "I." What is it after all, "I"? ...Then one night, a marvelous idea came to me: Instead of just submitting to this panic, I would try to observe it, to see where it is, what it is. I perceived then that it was
connected to a contraction in my stomach, a little under my ribs, and also in my throat...I forced myself to unclench, to relax my stomach. The panic disappeared ... when I tried again to think about death, instead of being gripped by the claws of panic I was filled by an entirely new feeling, whose name I did not know, something between mystery and hope."
-Mount Analogue, Rene Daumal — Rene Daumal

The quality that defines us as Americans is the courage to respond to being hit. The courage to root out and destroy the killers. And, most importantly, the courage to hold on to our values and protect our hard-won freedoms while doing it. — Nick Clooney

One man is proud when he has caught a poor hare, and another when he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears ... Are these not robbers? — Marcus Aurelius

God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality. — Elizabeth Gilbert

If you had known this: I love mercy, 45 not sacrifice, you would not have condemned those on whom is no blame. — Tatian The Assyrian

I don't want to be surrounded by 'yes men'. I want people who'll disagree with me, even if it costs them their jobs. — Samuel Goldwyn

The world is immeasurably complex and the private stock of reason is small. — David Brooks

I write to remember. I read to forget. — Michael Howard

And a moment that ought to have lasted for ever
Has come and gone before I knew. — Li Shang-yin