[W]hen we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice. In a sense, he is like a stew cooking on a stove; it has no choice but to cook. And it must cook because Providence has harnessed life with two chains: pleasure and pain (...) there is no difference here between man and animal. And if that is the case, there is no free choice whatsoever, but a pulling force, drawing them toward any bypassing pleasure and rejecting them from painful circumstances. And Providence leads them to every place it chooses by means of these two forces [i. e. pleasure and pain], without asking their opinion in the matter.
Yehuda AshlagRelated topics
animal asking case choice cook cooking difference find force free freedom hen man matter opinion pain place pleasure providence sense stew means circumstances chains ActsRelated quotes
I confess that I do not understand the principle on which the power to fix a minimum for the wages of women can be denied by those who admit the power to fix a maximum for their hours of work. I fully assent to the proposition that here as elsewhere the distinctions of the law are distinctions of degree, but I perceive no difference in the kind or degree of interference with liberty, the only matter with which we have any concern, between the one case and the other. The bargain is equally affected whichever half you regulate.... It will need more than the Nineteenth Amendment to convince me that there are no differences between men and women, or that legislation cannot take those differences into account.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
If you reject absolutely any single sensation without stopping to discriminate with respect to that which awaits confirmation between matter of opinion and that which is already present, whether in sensation or in feelings or in any immediate perception of the mind, you will throw into confusion even the rest of your sensations by your groundless belief and so you will be rejecting the standard of truth altogether. If in your ideas based upon opinion you hastily affirm as true all that awaits confirmation as well as that which does not, you will not escape error, as you will be maintaining complete ambiguity whenever it is a case of judging between right and wrong opinion. (24)
Epicurus
Steal music from napster while you have the chance. find free porn on the internet. sneak across the border into mexico just for the irony. how come every one on the internet is "hot"? tell your parents the truth. start your own army. adopt a dog. tell your children the truth. stop complaining and go out and do something about it. jump out of a fucking plane. stop reading this crap right now. don't listen to me. i don't have any answers and i stole the questions from someone else. read a good book. dont beat yourself up. question authority but don't forget to do what your told. turn off your computer right now and go outside and let people into your life.
Jared Leto
This is the kingdom of the chemical elements, the substances from which everything tangible is made. It is not an extensive country, for it consists of only a hundred or so regions (as we shall often term the elements), yet it accounts for everything material in our actual world. From the hundred elements that are at the center of our story, all planets, rocks, vegetation, and animals are made. These elements are the basis of the air, the oceans, and the Earth itself. We stand on the elements, we eat the elements, we are the elements. Because our brains are made up of elements, even our opinions are, in a sense, properties of the elements and hence inhabitants of the kingdom.
Peter Atkins
The lesson of the past century has been that where the dignity of the individual has been trampled or threatened - where citizens have not enjoyed the basic right to choose their government, or the right to change it regularly - conflict has too often followed, with innocent civilians paying the price, in lives cut short and communities destroyed.
The obstacles to democracy have little to do with culture or religion, and much more to do with the desire of those in power to maintain their position at any cost. This is neither a new phenomenon nor one confined to any particular part of the world. People of all cultures value their freedom of choice, and feel the need to have a say in decisions affecting their lives.
Kofi Annan