Life As A Kite Quotes

“How can we speak to each other like equals when one of us is holding a gun?”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“I begin to see how a post-money society would work in practice. When we are in paid employment, we are exchanging our labour in return for money in order to live within a money-based society, nothing more. Both sides in the labour-salary exchange are motivated by self-interest. But when we volunteer our labour for a cause, for a better world, we are not so much exchanging our labour as investing it directly into the world we want to see. Notes for Utopia: there will be no money when we get there.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“It insists on our absolute belief in unverifiable creeds and, in return, promises a reward that can only be verified after we cease to exist. By demanding the unconditional renunciation of our reason in this way, bad-faith prevents us from living an authentic, intentional life: it anaesthetises our integrity.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“The border of a nationality does not exist ‘in-itself’ in the same way that, say, a mountain, a shell or the moon exists. The border of a nationality is a condition that exists, if it can be said to exist at all, in the mind of the one who passively accepts it as existing. It is a ready-cut cloth, a costume, a fabricated flag, which is used to cover our nothingness.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“The temples of empires come tumbling down, the names of the mighty forgotten. Here is a parable: power never lasts.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“It is near time to speak of Peter – not the saint, but the Bishop of Lewes.  Gethsemane was significant to Peter. He made it significant to others.  There is a house in the South Downs of England, between Berwick and Wilmington, a bishop’s house – a former bishop – where the Garden of Gethsemane was made manifest.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Have you noticed, it's always the nationalists who deny climate change," says Eve. "Like they can't handle the challenge of thinking globally. I just wish they didn't take us all down with them.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“I think there will be war before this generation is through.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Those who are most afraid of their own freedom are the ones most desperate to take it from others.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Truth is the first casualty of fascism. When the truth can be so easily disregarded, all hell follows.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“It is a nerve-racking thing to be nothing, to be free, to be responsible for one’s own becoming at each and every moment. It is to be plunged into anxiety, into angst, to suffer the terror of one who stands at the edge of a lifelong precipice. There are no anchors now, no ropes, no gravity to keep us grounded; things fall apart in the stratosphere.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Nationalism is ultimately unethical, not merely because it is an inauthentic posture, but because it imposes limitations on the authenticity of others.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Peter didn’t go quietly to his Gethsemane. He refused to drink from the cup that he had forced so many others to drink.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Power is the ultimate inauthenticity. It obscures the truth of our common human experience: that we are all equally without essence, that we are all therefore equal.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Actions can be evil: the inversion of truth, power inflicted on the powerless, violence on the full spectrum of psychological to physical, subtle to unsubtle: all these acts, in the right context, can be defined as evil.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Religion does have a tendency to cling to power. That is the nature of the beast. It lends spiritual credibility to barbaric acts, is given protection and sustenance in return.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“But until we all realise that power – be it that of gods, of kings or of masters – only exists in our minds, dear Venerable, do not tell me to dispense with the concept of freedom.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Power does not simply stop at the locking of a door, even a cell door.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Look, see: the universe does nothing. Victim or monster, there is no one to help.  God is dead. We should have tried to do our best without him.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“England sinks, the waters rise, but exile is not all about weeping by the rivers. There are also insights in the wilderness.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“No other way is possible but agony, but suffering, says god, says Peter's god, says Peter.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Jerusalem – Urusalim to the Canaanites – City of Shalem, god of the Evening Star. In Hebrew, Yerushalayim – the City of Peace. In Arabic, al-Quds – simply The Holy.  So many names, so much unresolved. Jerusalem has serious issues.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“More clowns from the darkness: Donald Trump becomes president.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“The ripples from a stone thrown in ignorance are gathering pace.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“When I am asked why I have left England, I say that I am in "Brexile". It goes down well.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“I belin to see how a post-money society would work in practice. When we are in paid employment, we are exchanging our labour in return for money in order to live within a money-based society, nothing more. Both sides in the labour-salary exchange are motivated by self-interest. But when we volunteer our labour for a cause, for a better world, we are not so much exchanging our labour as investing it directly into the world we want to see. Notes for Utopia: there will be no money when we get there.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Openly supporting refugees today is like coming out as gay in the 1980s - kindness is in short supply.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Breathe. Steel yourself, for here ends gravity and there are now no anchors to keep you grounded. Beware, the apeman is not prepared for such leaps of imagination. Life is a kite. Remember to breathe.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“Them-and-us nationalism has been done before. We have seen where that leads: it does not end well. Nationality is as vaporous and as insubstantial as a collective dream, no more spiritual than a National Insurance number and no less randomly bestowed: determined by chance, conditioned by prejudice. We have moved beyond the apeman's horizon. We have. Surely we have.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite

“The Prime Minister Theresa May says she knows what you are better than you do. She says that a citizen of the world is a citizen of nowhere - although most scientists and philosophers would argue, on the contrary, that the world is quite definitely somewhere. The fragile contours of our small blue planet are quite easily identifiable to any passing asteroid.”
― Cliff James, Life As A Kite