Jan

“On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“Ook drong het niet tot haar door dat ze een keer gedacht had, dat als Port eerder doodging dan zij, ze niet werkelijk zou geloven dat hij dood was, maar eerder dat hij op de een of andere manier in zichzelf was teruggegaan, om daar te blijven, en dat hij zich nooit meer van haar bewust zou zijn, zodat in werkelijkheid zij het was die opgehouden had te bestaan, tenministe in belangrijke mate. Zij zou degene zijn die gedeeltelijk het rijk van de dood was ingegaan, terwijl hij zou voortbestaan, een verdriet binnen in haar, een deur die ongeopend was gebleven, een reddeloos verloren kans. (p. 173-174)”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

“Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.

It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.

It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.

It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

If this is true here at home, so it is true elsewhere in world.”
― Robert F. Kennedy

“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
― Seneca