goodlife
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
"O God my God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in tongue-science, which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was put in school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet, if idle in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, framed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the sons of Adam." - St. Augustine
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Read this, and think about the president of the united states of america:
"Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work; That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgement and justice, and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for they covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it."
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Good Quotes for a sandwich board?
"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"
"for in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up on a rock"
"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
"All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul."
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."
"...my cup runneth over."
"Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults."
A good morning for basking in the (occasionally quite profound) wisdom of pop music.
Such a rush to do nothing at all
Such a fuss to do nothing at all
Such a rush to do nothing at all
Such a rush to get nowhere at all
Such a fuss to do nothing at all
Such a rush
And it’s just like you said
It’s just like you’ll say
Such a rush to do nothing at all
Such a fuss to get nowhere at all
Such a rush, such a rush
And it’s just like you said
It’s just like you’ll say
So slow down please
Just slow down
So slow down please
Just slow down
-Coldplay
We've been linked-to. Isn't that nice of someone to do? So here's their site. Check it out.
the-Insight.com - A Spirituality Web Directory. spirituality/philosophy
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Trying to be a good student (again) and floundering (still) and entirely at a loss. All I can really do, I guess, is go through the motions with a sort of "dignified-defeatist" type attitude. I can quietly take my beatings and gracefully nod to my failures and so on and so forth and eventually it'll all fade away. Or I will. I'm not characteristically graceful, is the thing... and I'm trying to fade away, but it's not as easy as one tends to like to think it ought to be. Who the hell am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? What do I want? And, for that matter, who the hell are you, and what can I do yah for on this fine morning/evening/afternoon? How am I supposed to do my physics homework or write my silly religions paper without answering those sorts of troubling, pressing, obvious questions first? I know that learning about the science of things, and learning about God, and learning about grammar, and all of that jazz will help me get myself sorted out to some extent... because all of those things are in me and will probably be a part of what I continue to do with my life... but doesn't it seem a bit like we're tackling the bear ass-backwards? No matter how much you tell me that this stuff is good to know (I believe you, I really do) and that I'll regret it if I don't pay attention now (I already regret it, I promise), no matter how much you push that "we really are relevant!" point, I'm still not gonna be able to keep with it. You really don't care too much for calculating the force of the wind on the bridge at the exact moment that the bridge is collapsing beneath your feet; at that point you just want some fucking solid ground. Anyway...I'm lost. Anyone else? Email me. Let's chat.
Saturday, January 03, 2004
Rory: You'll wear a sandwich board with me? Yours doesn't have to be "political" in the sense that mine will be. A pumpkin one would be excellent.
Kelly: Yes, I believe I will wear a sandwich board with you.
Rory: Wouldn't it be so cool if a sizable number of us did this?
Kelly: Yes.
Rory: Spread the word!
Kelly: Mkay...
Rory: And it can be whatever people want it to say, which is good.
Kelly: I agree.
Rory: There doesn't have to be an agenda. It's just a "be yourself" agenda. "Be your own agenda"; "Just stop being their agenda without knowing it". See, we're wearing sandwich boards all the time and we just aren't aware. Our arms carrying heavy books and our faces tired and unhappy are sandwich boards. Those are the sandwich boards they want us to carry and that's the message they want us to show. "This is life". But that's not a happy message and it's not an accurate message.
Kelly: That is partly true, but do you really think they acknowledge it as an unhappy sandwich board?
Rory: Depends on who "they" are... and what form the "acknowledgement" comes in. I don't think every teacher and administrator intends to break and destroy children. That would be silly.
Kelly: I don't really think any teacher or administrator does. I think they're slaves just as we are, to the system. They're doing it the way it's been done for ages.
Rory: But I think many of them are aware that they are teaching children that it is most important to obey orders and follow rules... and that life isn't happy. And I think many of them believe that... because that's how they were taught. And that's the life they live...
Kelly: ...and it's hard to keep up an archaic system in a newer world. I think that could be true, yes. But...not most of them. I think most of them think teaching their subject is the most important thing and that orders are a by-product of all this.
Rory: I don't think much of it is a conscious process. It's "just the way it is". Except it's a silly way for it to be and it could easily be different. But no one can see that for some reason. You suggest it and they act like you told them to stop obeying gravity, to stop falling when you are no longer supported by something solid.
Kelly: Yeah, it's true, it's not conscious. I agree with you.
Rory: It's sort of disturbing how significant that sort of "order" is. People actually believe that there are only two alternatives... obedience and chaos. Nothing in my life has led me to believe that to be true. What I've seen is this: intelligent people arguing and proposing contrary, subversive, outrageous ideas... has a POSITIVE effect on society. That's what history shows us. When there has been a break down of "order" and a revolution of "thought" and "expression" and "reason" and "faith" it has IMMENSLY BENEFITTED society. That's how I see social change... the American Revolution, civil rights, the outset of Christianity, things like that.
Kelly: I think I agree with most of that.
And out of muffled desperation comes an idea. It is, quite possibly, a horrible idea. I will do it anyway.
Think... sandwich boards. Think of the things that one could write on a sandwich board. Think of how large and attention grabbing sandwich boards are when worn in environments to which sandwich boards (and people in sandwich boards) are not native. Think that there are no rules against sandwich boards. Think that they can be made very easily out of old pizza boxes and things. Think. Think. Think. We could take this places. Think with me. Email me. If you were a sandwich board, what would you say? If I were a sandwich board, what would you have me say? Would you wear me? It is time this began, I think. Think with me. Let's be the change we want to see in the world. Let's stop being taught to swim by drowning men. Let's stop being taught to fear the dark by light-bulb-sales-people. Let's run quickly and make mistakes but for God's sake let's do something.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
This relates to nothing, but I love it:
“So I feel less guilty about my smoke and I know all of a sudden all of us will go to heaven straight up from where we are, like golden phantoms of Angels in Gold Strap we go hitch hiking the Deus Ex Machina to heights Apocalyptic, Eucalyptic, Aristophaneac, and Divine – I suppose, and I wonder what the cat might think – To Cruz I say “your cat is having golden thoughts (su gata tienes pensas de or)” but she doesn’t understand for a thousand and one billion manifold reasons swimming in the swarm of her milk thoughts Buddha-buried in the stress of her illness enduring – “What’s Pensas?” she yells to the others, she doesn’t know that the cat is having golden thoughts – but the cat loves her so, and stays there, little behind to her chin, purring, glad, eyes X-closed and stoopy, kitty kitkat like the Pinky I’d just lost in New York run over on Atlantic Avenue by the swerve dim madtraffics of Brooklyn and Queens, the automatons sitting at wheels automatically killing cats every day about five or six a day on the same road. “but this cat will die the normal Mexican death – by old age or disease – and be wise old big burn in the alleys around, and you’ll see him (dirty as rags) flitting by the garbage heap like a rat, if Cruz ever gets to throw it out – But Cruz won’t, and so cat stays at her chin-point like a little sign of her good intentions.” - Jack Kerouac
“... So I vowed to keep myself alive, but only if I would never use me again for just me — each one of us is born of two, and we really belong to each other. I vowed to do my own thinking, instead of trying to accommodate everyone else's opinion, credo's and theories. I vowed to apply my inventory of experiences to the solving of problems that affect everyone aboard planet Earth.” - R. Buckminster Fuller
More good conversation...
Hugh: You know what?
Rory: What?
Hugh: Car headlights...
Rory: ?
Hugh: ...are kind of like school (see, after talking to you anything I dislike is suddenly very much like this "school"). They seem so useful but then, when something happens and you need some flexibilty or your energy and motivation "burn out", they're impossible to change. I have to take off my bumper to get at the screws to take off my grill to get at the screws to take out the light. And these screws are stripped, so I must take each one out with a combination of my oh-so-clever-but-very-slow-mechanical-techniques and the raw strength that grows from built up anger and frustration. And you can't free them without destroying them and much around them. You could hit the car with a sledge hammer, and get free...but that's so destructive. So there's only one solution (I would take credit for this but I would never steal Aaron Smith's ideas): I am forced to drive with my lights off.
Rory: That's profound.
and also...
Rory: I think I'm going to resolve myself to floating at least a foot and a half above the ground at all times and getting around by pushing off walls, or prodding things with a long stick, or going where the wind blows me.
Alex: That'd be fun. Let me know if you figure that out.
Rory: What is there to figure out? It's a new years resolution... they just happen right?
Monday, December 29, 2003
Hugh: I spent all of today building a gaint H in the snow. its 7 feet high.
Winter break is a beautiful thing. But so, so very short. When I say that school stifles the creative, joyful, magic, spiritual, intellectual, romantic, all-encompassing energy of mankind... I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Life can be lived better than this, I promise. We just have to sit up in the morning and say "you know, I'm gonna be more than they want me to be." I was talking to Thoreau about it and he shared this story with me:
...Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. "Do you wish to buy any baskets?" he asked. "No, we do not want any," was the reply. "What!" exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, "do you mean to starve us?" Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off, -- that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and by some magic wealth and standing followed, he had said to himself; I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
Friday, December 26, 2003
"If the parents in each generation... knew what really goes on at their son's schools, the history of education would be very different." - C.S. Lewis
A mantra I wrote for myself awhile ago and have neglected lately. Enjoy:
I am a point of light in a field of brilliant, shining color. And you are the point where my left would be, if such distinctions had any meaning. I am a drop of rain. And you are a drop of rain. There is no ground below approaching, only space to fall forever. I am a point of light in a field of color-- and I know that shadow can not dwell here in this house-without-walls in a field of brilliant, dazzling, space and color. I am a point of life in a world of living. You and I are cells processing glucose in the backbone of the Earth. I am a breath on the lips of God, and you are the breath immediately after. We are dew on the heads of angels and in the crevices of stones. No one comes and no one leaves us, we are still and nothing moves. Ours are stars of undiminished silence glowing faintly on the far side of the moon. And no one comes and no one leaves us. No one touches but all are touched. And I am a point of perfect stillness in an ocean without tide. And you are floating calmly by my side.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
I was afraid that my indignation about school would sort of quiet and humble itself in the face of two mostly comfortable weeks away from the drudgery and abuse. I had hoped the two weeks would provide me with ample time for rest, and convalescence, and reading inspirational authors, and organizing my thoughts, and etc. I suppose that, as of today (Christmas) either scenario could be in the works. The bank has been frustrating, these last several (crazy-pre-holiday) days, and I've had nary a moments peace until this morning. But good stuff has happened and good stuff is in the works. I'm feeling positive, this afternoon. Content. Today I turn adult (legally, anyway) and I am resolved internally not to return willingly to an environment that refuses to treat me with any semblance of respect. The question remains as to how my highschool experiance might be best improved and made-suitable to my needs. It is a good question. For now I'm recuperating and allowing my nerves to settle. I can't tell you how much this last semester of school has screwed with the inner workings of my mind. For Example: Today I was given a very nice suitcase by my father. My first thought was "Wow that's a cool suitcase" (as it ought to have been) but my second thought (this is the troubling part) was "How am I going to convince Mr. Terpstra that carrying this innocent case is in violation of no sane rules or regulations and in no way poses a threat to the community and stability of this highschool?" What a stupid place to be expected to learn. Why do we live in fear of this stuff?
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
I need three days during which I'm obligated to do nothing but sleep, but I'm afraid that won't happen.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Randomly Discovered Wisdom (the best kind):
"there's something that i need to remember about my life for future analysis:
right now, i am happy.
most of my life, i have been unhappy internally and, although annoyed at my external circumstances, more or less resigned to my inability to change them. now, i am happy internally and incredibly frustrated at my external situation, circumstances that are preventing the full realization of my internal disposition.
but i am not helpless. this is my life; i'm going to stop living it like it's not."
- Shelby (can't tell you much about her... sorta stumbled across her accidentally in one of those quirks of internet serendipity that we all know and love so well.)
"be less efficient but more creative. let that be the motive. don't be bothered too much about utilitarian ends. rather, constantly remember that you are not here in life to become a commodity. you are not here to become a utility, that is below dignity. you are not here just to become more and more efficient. you are here to become more and more alive; you are to become more and more intelligent; you are here to become more and more happy, ecstatically happy. but that is totally different from the ways of the mind..." - Osho
Friday, December 19, 2003
And break is finally here. (throws himself up on deck of rescue boat and hiccups up water, gasping for air, flailing about pitifully)
Thursday, December 11, 2003
homework (the concept of which I disagree with entirely) was a brilliant idea on someone's part. if one participates in the most challenging curriculum accessible (which, if one enjoys learning and thinking, one does) he finds, more often than not, that, though his thinking is not particularly stimulated (unless he takes physics), he is never-the-less completely exhausted and continually beset by those ditto-demons of idle, brainless, soulless occupation which are intended (supposedly) to enhance and reinforce the valuable concepts which (supposedly) he gathered and consumed over the course of his monotonous school day. school, without homework, is equivalent to a mandatory sort of menial part time job (with no hope of promotion) and homework itself (demanding as much as three hours an evening, with occasional over-time and considerable weekend hours) could constitute an occupation. for those of us who (for monetary and personal-self-worth reasons) attempt to carry an actual job on the side, things can be pretty rough. we wander about like the single mother working two shifts at two jobs and also caring for the troubled teenager. unlike the mother, of course, our situation is temporary and stupid. we are afforded the luxury of disassociation; the ability to say "this is not my life and in six months I will go to college". our failures and hardships and tears are, therefore, largely more endurable and our hopelessness is of a more hopeful variety. but the fact remains that there is virtually no time for substantial, productive thought of any sort. we do what we need to do to get by and if, occasionally, we are blessed with a quiet moment in which to think an original thought, the chances that time and circumstance will allow us to act on that intuition are very poor. homework, I would argue, plays a very necessary part in the breaking of souls and the conditioning of happy children to lives of miserable servitude with occasional moments of bliss. if one were attempting to insure that the persons over whom one had control never ever questioned or challenged that control, it would be wise to give them homework. whether this truth appeared in the form of a conscious thought to the administrative powers-that-be at any point in the evolution of modern American educational philosophy I don't know. it doesn't seem that unlikely.
"Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening...The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role." - William Harris (U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889)
it will make
no difference
to the river
if a pebble
makes a ripple
but the pebble
and the fish
will not forget
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Yet another circumstance in which our highschool is kind enough to introduce us to a beautiful work of art and then offer up itself as an undeniable validation of the artists' very-critical comments about society:
when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage-
when thorns regard their roses with alarm
and rainbows are insured against old age
when every thrush may sing no new moon in
if all screech-owls have not okayed his voice
-and any wave signs on the dotted line
or else an ocean is compelled to close
when the oak begs permission of the birch
to make an acorn-valleys accuse their
mountains of having altitude-and march
denounces april as a saboteur
then we'll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind(and not until)
-e.e. cummings
Saturday, December 06, 2003
"When we are willing to abandon our self-protective professional autonomy and make ourselves as dependent on students as they are on us, we move closer to the interdependence that the community of truth requires."
- Parker J. Palmer
Tossed my way by an interested Chelsea Highschool parent (who just happens to be a college professor and, consequently, not-uninvolved in the whole "education" deal). I havn't really had an adequate opportunity (just yet) to sit, and think, and meditate over, and write about this... but I thought I'd put it up for the world to see and enjoy.
Friday, December 05, 2003
Pressing buttons, filling out forms.
Pressing buttons, filling out forms.
Pressing buttons, filling out forms.
Pressing buttons, filling out forms.
Pressing buttons...
(Is this life?)
Thursday, December 04, 2003
I'm not sure everybody is aware that this exists, so I thought I'd "make it available". It contains a full directory of Chelsea-School-District teacher, administrator, and staff email addresses. I can't think of a better, more appropriate way to contact people who are in a position to answer your difficult questions, respond to your pressing arguments, and share what knowledge they've acquired over the course of their career in education. The fact that these people are willing to publically post their contact information and (I would assume) respond to student inquiries says a lot about the community we're a part of, and I would encourage all of you to take advantage of their accessibility. Try to be respectful... but I don't see any harm in intelligently expressing your valid grievances and thoughful criticisms. I intend to.
Anyway... do with that what you will. Have a lovely evening.
A German perspective on American logic:
Rory: I just returned from the detention I had to serve for carrying my viola in the hallway.
Paula: That's STUPID! Why are you not allowed to carry your viola in the hallway?
Rory: I'm not sure exactly. They tell me it counts as a backpack.
Paula: Oh yes, I forgot, we are in America: you could KILL someone.
We (Americans) are such silly people sometimes. That said, detention was quiet and pleasant and a very good time. I have no problem with being forced to read and think and consider my contribution to this school, this community, the world, and the lives of those individuals with whom I've come into contact. I think I'm capable of good things. I hope so. It's a shame that I've waited so long to get to work.
(makes busy, getting-to-work-type humming noises)
Paula: ...and what i really like better about german schools is that there is no "school spirit". The pep rally was one of the weirdest things i have experienced in my exchange year so far. I felt like i was surrounded by crazy sektenmitgliedern. Wait, i will look the word up... "sect members".
Rory: Sounds accurate.
Paula: Yes, that's exactly how i felt, standing there surrounded by screaming, excited people, like they were praying to a strange god, and drums were making the matching noises.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
"These things I have spoken to you that in me ye might have peace: in the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world." - Jesus Christ
Man lives in his own world. He built it out of words and dirt and in the blink of an eye it is reduced to words and dirt again. Look past the meaningless, silly regulations we set for ourselves and the trivial ordinances we judge ourselves by. It's all stacks of paper in an office somewhere on a desk, or flashing across the screen of a computer. None of that means anything. Your arms and legs and flesh and mind and heart and soul mean something. A kiss means something. A laugh or a smile means something. Grades, Tardies, Detention-Slips "... In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer". Open your eyes. Take a deep breath. This is life. Be alive. Overcome the world.
Monday, December 01, 2003
And it's always good to see many sides of things. To that end I give you not-particularly-rebellious emerson (directly stolen from Katie Personke's birthday card):
"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!"
"But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself."
It ought not be such a complicated issue, I think. We make it more perplexing than it really is. Every time we act in a manner that is dictated by external "authorities" and out of harmony with our personal understanding of the universe, every time we betray what we naturally are (in favor of what others would have us be) we weaken ourselves and our society. We muddle, and grey, and moderate until we become confused and are no longer capable of distinguishing the one from the other. We are no longer men and women... we are collages of men and women assembled out of recycled magazine articles and television specials and each other. We are the sum total of the random, meaningless blowing of a superficial wind. We seek comfort and safety in community and unity but it is not comfortable or safe. We feel out of tune, somehow. We feel out of place even as we acquire those gifts particularly demanded by "fitting in". We float and drift and bob through days feeling entirely helpless (at worst) and significantly confused (at best). I can only speak from my own experiance. I can only share what little meaning I've managed to accumulate in terms of my own existance and personal path. But it seems to me that a person in such circumstances can not avoid reaching a point at which he says "this is not me".
What then?
I am logically obligated to ask "if not this, what?" This isn't hard. Just watch yourself. Just listen to yourself talk and follow your own train of thought consciously. Do what you do. Say what you have to say. Make each and every step and action conscious and intentional and natural and right. Project who you are. Be who you are. "But do your work, and I shall know you..." And you shall know yourself. Have you ever met someone whose personal energy and presence was so powerful that you could feel it and sense it and enjoy its effects without a word? "Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment." Be yourself.
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Food for thought...
Rory: i don't feel like i've been wanting something to fight for, all this time. that would imply that i am naturally prone to fighting. maybe I am... i hope not. I think that i've been struggling for a long time trying to make sense of this whole highschool thing... and finally it became apparant to me that we are each complete and whole and good beings... we just need to learn to be ourselves and not let anyone else try to screw with it. and thats what i'm trying to do. that brings me into conflict with the school... so be it
Aaron: by fighting i didn't particularly mean battle, i think. i was leaning more towards a quest sort of idea. searching to find who you are amidst all these things they make us go through each day, like machinery. and we're used to being machines but we all want more out of life. and so i was meaning that you've been fighting to find yourself and what you really want and school is indeed getting in the way of it. and now they won't admit that they're being foolish about certain aspects of things so you're getting out of the loop to prove yourself, your worth and to prove them wrong.
Rory: i have qualms with making it a "rebellion" or a "revolution".... i think "movement" is okay. i like to see it as being happy and living rightly and doing what is necessary and being myself no matter what. i want to make it more than "rory vs. mr. mead". i think it is more than that. it has that element (it's sort of inevitable that it have that element) but i want it to be "people living", "people smiling"...
Aaron: it's more than just one person. it's more than just him and you.
Rory: the real issue to me is that these things that I'm doing should never be an issue. they're silly obvious things. its trying to be oneself, do ones work
Aaron: exactly
Rory: come to class prepared, have my viola after school, breathe, smile, carry a hat.
Aaron: carry a goddamn hat indeed
Rory: and thats what i want this "movement" to embody. not "taking down the system" but "being yourself and doing what's right at all costs even if it contradicts 'the system' and everything that that represents."
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." - Nietzsche
"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly." - Albert Einstein
"The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately... education produces no effect whatsoever." - Oscar Wilde
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. " - Thomas Jefferson
"I've sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. "
- Thomas Jefferson
"My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself." - George Bernard Shaw
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. " - Samuel Adams
"We, the people, are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the constitution. " - Abraham Lincoln
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, and brutal violations of common sense and common decency." - H.L. Mencken
"It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery." - Benjamin Disraeli
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Noah Webster
"Let me be a free man...free to travel... free to stop...free to work...free to choose my own teachers...free to follow the religion of my Fathers...free to think and talk and act for myself." - Chief Joseph Nez Perce
"Must a citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right." Henry David Thoreau
"It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity." Benito Mussolini ("The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism")
"How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it. " - Alexander Dumas
"There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough - the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not. " - Floyd Dell
"Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence." - Albert Wiggam
"We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go... If you don't like what you are doing, you can always pick up your needle and move to another groove. If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out." - Timothy Leary
"This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right." - Ralph Emerson
"That man is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot
"Education is a sexual disease, it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you have the urge to pass it on." - Terry Pratchett
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
"...not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs; not to bind them by ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions, but to prepare them for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their decision; not to burden memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought." - William Channing
"I learn by going where I have to go." - Theodore Roethke
"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. " - Kurt Vonnegut
"You can't shoot an idea." - Thomas E. Dewey
"When teaching, light a fire, don't fill a bucket" - Dan Snow
"To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting..." - E.E. Cummings
"It is not the critic who counts; Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; Who strives valiantly; Who errs, and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; But who does actually strive to do the deeds; Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; Who spends himself in a worthy cause; Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worse, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Ghandi
"They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth." - Plato
"Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be duplicated. The sigularity of every man and woman is Jah's gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth." - Bob Marley
"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. " - Thomas Paine
"If a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." - Anthony Burgess
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." - Henry David Thoreau
"It is the path of least resistance that makes rivers and men crooked." - B.J. Palmer
"If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that." - Goethe
"Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right." - Isaac Asimov
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
why is this so hard for me? I don't know. but every thread of soul and being and worn-through cotton-fabric spirit seems united in renouncing this life and place and circumstance. could I kill for someone else's idea of order and goodness? then how can I live for it? be true to yourself. be what you are, think what you think, do what you do. people are good and the world is beautiful. let yourself be good. let the world be beautiful. don't let anyone stop you, or it, or life. don't take no for an answer. don't say yes and mean maybe. don't pretend. be. and be. and be. if they change you it is because you let them. if you let them you will be lost in a personality which is not yours, and you will never understand a step you take or a word you speak, and the stirrings of your weak heart will always sound strange and make you lonely and upset. be and don't be ashamed. live and don't ask for permission. God is the only one in a position to judge you and he will understand, I promise.
