Stephan Winter > Stephan's Quotes

“grief is a house
where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us

grief is a house that disappears
each time someone knocks at the door
or rings the bell
a house that blows into the air
at the slightest gust
that buries itself deep in the ground
while everyone is sleeping

grief is a house where no one can protect you
where the younger sister
will grow older than the older one
where the doors
no longer let you in
or out”
― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

“To navigate in a world without value is to be without rudder or destination, and yet without science, we navigate blind. To many, apparently, blindness is preferable.”
― Terrence W. Deacon

“[...] nonstate conflicts kill far fewer people than conflicts that involve a government, perhaps a quarter as many. Again, this is not surprising, since goverments almost by definition are in the violence business.”
― Steven Pinker

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“I lived again through all the loves of my life - but under hapier stars.”
― Hermann Hesse

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Anyone who expects to create, be it as a scientist or artist, scholar or writer, needs self-confidence, even bravado. How else can one dare to imagine understanding what no one else has understood, discovering what no one else has discovered? Where does this confidence come from? Fortunately, every young person is blessed with some of it. It is part of human character.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!”
― Fernando Pessoa

“It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”
― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

“Nobody can be anybody without somebodies around.”
― John Archibald Wheeler

“Yes, there is happiness to be found in the mere contemplation of the deepest mysteries.”
― John Archibald Wheeler, Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics

“Vraag naar het fundament van autoriteit, en je eindigt met de ondermijning ervan.”
― Paul Verhaeghe

“Death is a problem of the living. Dead people have no problems.”
― Norbert Elias

“The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world...

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.”
― Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

“Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.”
― Thomas Piketty

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
― David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

“The humiliating climbdown, the necessary deception, and stepping over one's pride: they should each have their honoured place in a modern account of the political virtues.”
― Jonathan Glover

“If torture is permitted, it's hard to imagine what isn't.”
― Jonathan Glover

“Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.”
― Henry Miller

“Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.”
― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

“When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“However, Saudi Arabia quickly discovered what the rest of the world would soon learn. Fundamentalism, in all religious traditions, is impervious to suppression. The more one tries to squelch it, the stronger it becomes. Counter it with cruelty, and it gains adherents. Kill its leaders, and they become martyrs. Respond with despotism, and it becomes the sole voice of opposition. Try to control it, and it will turn against you. Try to appease it, and it will take control.”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“To define is to limit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Niet onze overtuigingen, maar onze twijfels zullen ons verenigen.”
― Stephen Winter, Palmloos Gebed/Massamoord Refrein

“De beste van alle werelden is ook de meest fragiele van alle werelden.”
― Stephen Winter, Palmloos Gebed/Massamoord Refrein

“Can omniscient God, who
Knows the future, find
The Omnipotence to
Change His future mind?”
― Karen Owens

“For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire, –
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, — then mourned for all!”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems