Jonathan-David Jackson > Jonathan-David's Quotes

“Compare two people, one of whom has been crippled by an accident, the other by an early environmental history which makes him lazy and, when criticized, mean. Both cause great inconvenience to others, but one dies a martyr, the other a scoundrel.”
― B.F. Skinner, About Behaviorism

“But I've actually lived long enough now to have figured out what the word "morality" really refers to. I do know what it means, although it's pretty outrageous. It refers to a very simple thought: we shouldn't accept this principle that strong inevitably triumphs over weak. Luck has distributed strength in an arbitrary way: this lion is stronger, this elk is stronger, this group of people lives closer to the river, this group of people lives farther away. Luck has given the person with the penis, the people with the guns, a bit more strength, and so they've trampled over everyone else. Morality says we shouldn't accept that. For the bigger kid to take the smaller kid's candy bar is not right; it's wrong. And if the bigger kid gives that candy bar to me, the process by which I received it was wrong, and it's wrong for me to have it, and it's wrong for me to eat it.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“It was surprising enough when strangely dressed religious leaders took over the government of such a large country as Iran. But now, these bin Ladenists? The tactics they've used are bloodthirsty, sadistic. They shamelessly show their pleasure when their enemies are killed. They touch their victims, they look at their faces. They film the killings! These are all things that we would never do--well, except on very rare occasions, like the time we killed bin Laden himself.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“It seems undeniable that once it beings, violence leads us into some sort of madness, some terrifying maze inside the mind in which we become lost, and we don't know what's happening or what we ourselves are doing.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“Revenge and punishment both imply, “Even if I’d been you, and I’d had your life, I would never have done what you did.” And that in turn implies, “I wouldn’t have done it, because I’m better than you.” But the person who says, “I’m better than you” is taking a serious step in a very dangerous direction. And the person who says, “Even if I’d had your life, I would never have done what you did” is very probably wrong.”
― Wallace Shawn, Night Thoughts

“It was only a moment of confusion, but it was carnivorous, and he sensed that by acknowledging it he had allowed it in.”
― M. John Harrison, Light

“Whats so terbel its jus that knowing of the horrer in every thing. The horrer waiting. I dont know how to say it. Like say you myt get cut bad and all on a sudden there you are with your leg opent up and youre looking at the mussl fat and boan of it. You all ways knowit what wer unner the skin only you dont want to see that bloody meat and boan.”
― Russell Hoban;

“He felt as if he were in a locked room in the middle of a great open country. It was all around him, if only he could get at it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase

“Just between us, slavery, preferably with a smile, is inevitable then. But we must not admit it. Isn't it better that whoever cannot do without having slave should call them free men? For the principle to begin with, and, secondly, not to drive them to despair, We owe them that compensation, don't we? I that way, they will continue to smile and we shall maintain our good conscience. Otherwise, we'd be obliged to reconsider our opinion of ourselves; we'd go mad with suffering, or even become modest - for everything would be possible.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“I was not up to forgiving offences, but I did eventually forget all of them - and a person who thought that I hated him would be amazed to see me greet him with a broad smile. Depending on his character, he would then either admire my generous soul or despise my faint-heartedness, never imaging that the reason was simpler: I had forgotten even as much as his name. (pp 31)”
― Albert Camus

“we rarely confide in those who are better than we. Rather, we are more inclined to flee their society. Most often, on the other hand, we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses. Hence we don't want to improve ourselves and be bettered, for we should first have to be judged in default. We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen. In short, we should like, at the same time, to cease being guilty and yet not to make the effort of cleansing ourselves.”
― Albert Camus

“A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Something must happen—and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death. Hurray then for funerals!”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“In short, for me to live happily it was essential for the creatures I chose not to live at all. They must receive their life, sporadically, only at my bidding.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“And how often, standing on the pavement involved in a passionate discussion with friends, I lost the thread of the argument being developed because a devastating woman was crossing the street at that very moment.”
― Albert Camus

“A cursed life!” he shouted with vexation, and he banged the sausage on the floor.”
― Anton Chekhov, Four Plays By Chekov

“The lamp, in which the kerosene was getting low, was smoking and smelling. A stray cockroach was running about the table in alarm near Nevyrazimov's writing hand. [. . .] On the ceiling he saw a dark circle—the shadow of the lamp-shade. Below it was the dusty cornice, and lower still the wall, which had once been painted a bluish muddy color. And the office seemed to him such a place of desolation that he felt sorry, not only for himself, but even for the cockroach.”
― Anton Chekhov

“Suddenly there was a deafening crash on the edge of the trench. I got a blow on the skull, and fell forward unconscious. When I came round, I was dangling head down over the breech of a heavy machine-gun, staring down at a pool of blood that was growing alarmingly fast on the floor of the trench. The blood was running down so unstoppably that I lost all hope. As my escort assured me he could see no brains, I took courage, picked myself up, and trotted on. That was what I got for being so foolish as to go into battle without a steel helmet.”
― Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel

“The war has naught to do with slaves, cried Congress, the President, and the Nation; and yet no sooner had the armies, East and West, penetrated Virginia and Tennessee than fugitive slaves appeared within their lines.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“Morally and practically, the Freedmen’s Bank was part of the Freedmen’s Bureau, although it had no legal connection with it. With the prestige of the government back of it, and a directing board of unusual respectability and national reputation, this banking institution had made a remarkable start in the development of that thrift among black folk which slavery had kept them from knowing. Then in one sad day came the crash,—all the hard-earned dollars of the freedmen disappeared; but that was the least of the loss,—all the faith in saving went too, and much of the faith in men; and that was a loss that a Nation which to-day sneers at Negro shiftlessness has never yet made good. Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and bankruptcy of the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their especial aid.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The degree of ignorance cannot easily be expressed. We may say, for instance, that nearly two-thirds of them cannot read or write. This but partially expresses the fact. They are ignorant of the world about them, of modern economic organization, of the function of government, of individual worth and possibilities,—of nearly all those things which slavery in self-defence had to keep them from learning. Much that the white boy imbibes from his earliest social atmosphere forms the puzzling problems of the black boy’s mature years. America is not another word for Opportunity to all her sons.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“I shirk not. I long for work. I pant for a life full of striving. I am no coward, to shrink before the rugged rush of the storm, nor even quail before the awful shadow of the Veil. But hearken, O Death! Is not this my life hard enough,—is not that dull land that stretches its sneering web about me cold enough,—is not all the world beyond these four little walls pitiless enough, but that thou must needs enter here,—thou, O Death?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The nineteenth was the first century of human sympathy, -- the age when half wonderingly we began to descry in others that transfigured spark of divinity which we call Myself; when clodhoppers and peasants, and tramps and thieves, and millionaires and -- sometimes -- Negroes, became throbbing souls whose warm pulsing life touched us so nearly that we half gasped with surprise, crying, "Thou too! Hast Thou seen Sorrow and the dull waters of Hopelessness? Hast Thou known Life?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“Herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, — all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, — who is good? not that men are ignorant, — what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.”
― W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

“It was a hard struggle, for things did not come easily to him, [...] but all the world toward which he strove was of his own building, and he builded slow and hard.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“So he thought and puzzled along for himself,—pausing perplexed where others skipped merrily, and walking steadily through the difficulties where the rest stopped and surrendered.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“John,” she said, “does it make every one—unhappy when they study and learn lots of things?”

He paused and smiled. “I am afraid it does,” he said.

“And, John, are you glad you studied?”

“Yes,” came the answer, slowly but positively.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk