"I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition." Eugene Debs, Utah 1910. [stress added]
“a consistent libertarian must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer”. Noam Chomsky
"human talents vary considerably, within a fixed framework that is characteristic of the species and that permits ample scope for creative work, including the appreciation of the creative achievements of others. This should be a matter of delight rather than a condition to be abhorred." Noam Chomsky [regarding the "liberty — equality" concern]
"Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you Ye are many--they are few"
Percy Shelley
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
Steve Biko
"If the world must lose eight of its people, it can better afford to lose the eight members of the Illinois Supreme Court."
George Bernard Shaw (on the Haymarket martyrs' verdict)
"music is the ultimate teacher..."
Kandinsky
"Any idiot can face a crisis. It's the day-to-day living that wears you out."
Anton Chekhov
"We all are born mad. Some remain so."
Dorothea Dix
"Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence."
"A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong."
"A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power."
"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily."
"Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults."
"He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself."
"If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia."
"In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined."
"It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish."
"Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less."
"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates."
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
"There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography."
"When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him."
Thomas Szasz
"This was in late December, 1936...The anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia & the revolution was still in full swing...when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling & overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle."
George Orwell, Homage To Catalonia
In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial. Who, squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands, & ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it, because it is bitter, & because it is my heart."
Stephen Crane
Foucault's endeavor is to make us aware how limited our imaginations really are, especially when it comes to sexuality. As Deleuze says, paraphrasing Spinoza, we still do not know what our bodies can do. Even our wildest s&m fantasies are all too often trite & formulaic. Thus Foucault ultimately concludes that,
"Sex is boring."
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
George Bernard Shaw
"This is what I find most encouraging about the writing trades: They allow mediocre people who are patient & industrious to revise their stupidity."
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently."
Thelonious Monk
"Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it. ”
Oscar Wilde —The Critic as Artist (1891)
"Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I, do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood."
Oscar Wilde (to Whistler, 1885)
"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
"The Relation of Dress to Art" 1885, Oscar Wilde
"Because [Toynbee] took Judaism, Christianity, Islam and communism as a related group, and contrasted them with Buddhism, his analysis was very different. Toynbee is reputed to have said, 'The coming of Buddhism to the West may well prove to be the most important event of the Twentieth Century'" [Wiki].