Greg > Greg's Quotes

“With an evermore increase of industrialisation the machine stops being merely a tool, develops a life of its own and imposes its rhythm onto human. Operating it he moves mechanically, becomes part of the machine.”
― Fritz Lang, Metropolis

“Money is the barometer of a society's morals. When you see that deals are no longer made voluntarily but under duress, that in order to produce you need the permission of people who produce nothing, that money flows to those who trade not in goods but in favours, that people get rich through bribery and connections, not through work, that the laws do not protect you from these people but these people from you, that corruption is rewarded and honesty punished, then you know that your society is on the verge of collapse.”
― Ayn Rand

“The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now.”
― Alan Watts

“Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“Racing is like life; it’s not always about who’s the fastest, but who can handle the curves.”
― Unknown

“Simulation is the situation created by any system of signs when it becomes sophisticated enough, autonomous enough, to abolish its own referent and to replace it with itself.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simluation

“The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“To Do is To Be – Friedrich Nietzsche

To Be is To Do – Immanuel Kant

Do Be Do Be Do – Frank Sinatra”
― Unknown

“No land was ever acquired honestly on the history of the earth.”
― Philip Meyer

“Money is the universal, self-constituted value of all things. Hence it has robbed the whole world of it's proper value.”
― Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy

“The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within.”
― Fritjof Capra

“Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“Most people do not see their beliefs. Instead, their beliefs tell them what they see. This is the simple difference between clarity and confusion.”
― Matt Kahn

“Never did a book reveal such truths,
Why seek a name? It matters not;
The boundless found a shape and form
In sacrifice's sacred knot.

Oh see, what is possession's worth
If it knows not to offer its all?
Things pass away. Aid them in passing,
Lest life from a hidden crack should fall.

Forever, be the giver, not the taker.
The mule, the cow—all press their way
To where the king’s image, like a child,
Is sated, smiles, and softly lays.

His temple breathes unceasing calm,
He takes and takes, yet grants reprieve,
So gentle even, the princess's hand
Holds the papyrus bloom, but does not cleave.

Here, sacrifice’s paths are cut,
The Sunday rises, ungrasped by weeks.
Man and beast drag gains aside,
Unseen by gods, as profit speaks.

Though hard, commerce bends to will,
Earth cheapened, tamed by practiced skill,
But one who pays the ultimate price,
Surrenders all—they too are sacrificed.

(Translation by CoPilot AI)”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Samtliche Werke

“In contrast to a journalistic appropriation, however, scientists will endeavour to reveal the principles and building blocks of their own construction and make them comprehensible.
They will also endeavour to take into account all available details to such an extent that they do not contradict their image, in the words of the philosopher Karl Popper, to test the ‘truth similarity’ of a theory [K. Popper, Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach]. If they succeed in doing this, some will grant the result the quality of a “re-construction” of past reality and thus raise it to an “objective” level. In the vast majority of cases, however, this is not the only possible view, not even the most probable in the mathematical sense, because historical facts are rarely calculable, but a plausible one, i.e. a treatment of the problem that is appropriate to it and makes a recognisable contribution to its understanding [E. von Glasersfeld, An Introduction to Radical Constructivism]. One of the most important tasks of a degree programme is to learn to allow this plurality of perspectives without confusing it with arbitrariness.”
― Eckhard Wirbelauer, Antike (Oldenbourg Geschichte Lehrbuch)

“If one sees a handful of powerful and rich people at the pinnacle of opulence and fortune, while the crowd below grovels in obscurity and wretchedness, it is because the former valued the things they enjoy only because others are deprived of them and even without changing their condition, they would cease to rejoice if the people ceased to suffer.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

“Consciousness, by its very nature, exists only in the singular. I would like to say: the total number of all "consciousnesses" is always merely "one.”
― Erwin Schrödinger, Geist und Materie (Diogenes Taschenbuch)

“The reason why our feeling, perceiving, and thinking self appears nowhere in our scientific worldview can easily be expressed in five words: It is itself this worldview. It is identical with the whole and therefore cannot be contained within it as a part.”
― Erwin Schrödinger, Geist und Materie (Diogenes Taschenbuch)

“A purely intellectual worldview entirely without mysticism is absurd.”
― Erwin Schrödinger, Meine Weltansicht

“We live, say well-informed people, in a century of disbelief and skepticism. Yet there is no shortage of gods or prophets.”
― Gérard de Nerval, God is dead! The gods return: An English version of Les chimères of Gerard de Nerval

“Mao Ch’iang and Li Chi were considered beautiful by men, but when fish saw them, they plunged into the depths; when birds saw them, they flew high in the sky; and when deer saw them, they ran away. Did any of these four really know the true principle of beauty in the world? As I see it, the principles of benevolence and righteousness and the paths of right and wrong are tangled and confused. How should I know how to distinguish them?”
― Chuang Tzu, The Book of Chuang Tzu

“The first article of the omnipotence of the Creator produces a childlike fear of God, the second of the only begotten Son produces love for God, receiving the Holy Spirit produces shame and horror of sin, being born of the Virgin produces chastity and serious practice of virtue, suffering produces a willing endurance of all repugnance. The question: How did Pontius Pilate come to be included in the symbol? They had pointed to him as the head of the government in the Holy Land, had spoken of his alleged homeland of Pontus and much more. The pious man of the 15th century refrains from all this unfruitful scholarship. To him it simply says: Under Pontius Pilate, the right obedience to all men is worked in us. The historical note therefore means nothing other than Paul’s words: Let everyone be subject to the authorities who have authority over him.
Furthermore, the crucifixion causes us to turn away from the world and its evil lust, the death of Jesus causes us to die to all sins, vices and our own nature. His burial brings us peace of heart without all strife, his descent into hell the right brotherly love, by means of which we come to the aid of all men and diligently remember in our prayers the souls in purgatory as well as the people on earth.
Christ has risen from the dead: so we rise from all evil habits and the influence of the stars and direct our three spiritual powers towards God and useful things. He ascended to heaven and thereby made it possible for us to live a life of true vision. In the detailed way in which the five degrees of vision are described, the special interest of the mystic is clearly revealed. The thought of Christ’s return for judgement educates us to righteousness. We owe to the article on the Holy Spirit a purity of heart by virtue of which we wont become bad again, nor can we become bad again.
The pious man knows nothing of a holy Catholic Church, whose world-embracing power other expositors prefer to contrast with the limited conventicles of the heretics. He only knows a holy Christianity whose goods consist in our becoming children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, disciples of the Holy Spirit and comrades of the apostles. The article on eternal life fills us with hope and longing for the hereafter, protects us from the sorrows of this life and makes us willing to part from it. With the Amen, however, we surrender ourselves to God’s will to want what he wants from us.
It will not be difficult to prove all these sentences from Eckart or other mystical writers of the 14th century.”
― Friedrich Wiegand, Das apostolische Symbol im Mittelalter: Eine Skizze (Vorträge der Theologischen Konferenz zu Giessen, 21)

“... that with the defeat of the revolutionary workers, Europe finally fell back into its old double slavery, into Anglo-Russian slavery. The June struggle in Paris, the fall of Vienna, the tragicomedy of Berlin in November 1848, the desperate efforts of Poland, Italy, and Hungary, the starvation of Ireland—these were the main moments in which the European class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the working class came to a head, in which we proved that every revolutionary uprising, no matter how distant its goal may seem from the class struggle, must fail until the revolutionary working class wins, that every social reform remains a utopia until the proletarian revolution and the feudal counterrevolution clash in a world war.
In our account, as in reality, Belgium and Switzerland were tragicomic caricatures in the great historical tableau, one a model state of bourgeois monarchy, the other a model state of bourgeois republic, both states imagining themselves to be as independent of the class struggle as they were of the European revolution.”
― Karl Marx, Wage-Labour and Capital

“Nowhere do “politicians” form a more distinct and powerful segment of the nation than in North America. Here, each of the two major parties, which take turns in power, is itself governed by people who treat politics as a business, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of both the federal government and the individual states, or who make a living by campaigning for their party and are rewarded with positions after its victory. It is well known how Americans have been trying for 30 years to shake off this yoke, which has become unbearable, and how, despite all this, they are sinking ever deeper into this quagmire of corruption. It is precisely in America that we can best see how this separation of state power from society—of which it was originally intended to be merely an instrument—is taking place. Here there is no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army—except for the few men guarding the Indians—and no bureaucracy with permanent positions or pension entitlements. And yet we have here two large gangs of political speculators who take turns seizing state power and exploiting it through the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt purposes—and the nation is powerless against these two large cartels of politicians, who supposedly serve it but in reality dominate and plunder it.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)”
― Friedrich Engels, Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich: Adresse des Generalraths der Internationalen Arbeiter-Association. Dritte deutsche Auflage

“The ruling class is opposed to the lower class—that is, ‘closed’ to the outside—insofar as it ‘excludes, restricts, or makes admission conditional.’ It denies the lower class access to the ‘monopolized opportunities’ that positive law grants it—‘opportunities for the satisfaction of internal or external interests.’ When these opportunities are appropriated, they are called ‘rights,’ and when they are appropriated by inheritance, they are called ‘property.’ In other words: the concept of domination encompasses not only legal inequality but also economic exploitation based on ‘monopolized’ property rights.”

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)”
― Franz Oppenheimer

“The world of the stories of the Holy Scriptures is not content with the claim to be a historically true reality - it claims to be the only true world, the world destined for sole dominion. ... The stories of Holy Scripture do not court our favor, as Homer's do, they do not flatter us in order to please and charm us - they want to subjugate us, and if we refuse, we are rebels. The belief in the one God who reveals himself to the world in Israel's destiny is imperious and exclusive.”
― Otto Kaiser, Zwischen Athen und Jerusalem: Studien zur griechischen und biblischen Theologie, ihrer Eigenart und ihrem Verhältnis (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die ... Wissenschaft, 320)