words of wisdom

The splendiferous Lili has been blogging her way through a literary tour of Europe, as Writer in Residence over at Inside A Dog.


Do go and read her; the lady is magical.

words of wisdom

Today's Words of Wisdom is not a collection of quotable snippets from any one person. Rather, I've thrown together a few quotes on the same topic: homosexuality. Perhaps I'm in a peculiarly rainbow-flag-waving mood today. Who knows? At any rate here is some food for thought (Incidentally, not all of these words are wise. I thought I'd throw in some to illustrate the stpuidity and offensiveness of homophobia as well. Oh, and apologies to my gay lady friends, but many of these are specifically about male homosexuality. There are just more good quotes about us guys!)...

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As everyone knows, a fag is a homosexual gentleman who has just left the room.
~ Truman Capote

Anyone who thinks that love needs to be cured has not experienced enough of it in their own lives.
~ Joan Garry

Homosexuality is a crime against humanity ... Causes of homosexuality include: 'sex with animals'
~ Paul Cameron

Wherever it has been established that it is shameful to be involved with sexual relationships with men, that is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed.
~ Plato

Gays are not oppressed on a whim, but because of the specific need of capitalism for the nuclear family. The nuclear family ... fulfills an important need for capitalism. Alternative sexualities represent a threat to the family model because they provide an alternative role model for people. Gays are going to be in the front line of attack whenever capitalism wants to reinforce family values.
~ Louise Tierney, "Looking to the Future"

Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches.
~ Jesse Helms (Sen. R-NC)

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity. You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse.
~ Sharon Underwood

If you remove all the homosexuals and homosexual influences from what is generally regarded as American culture, you are pretty much left with Let's Make a Deal.
~ Fran Lebowitz

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's charioteers.
~ Jerry Falwell

Concerning the Pope's claim that homosexuality is 'unnatural'. Perhaps the Pope is suggesting that it lies beyond the scope of 'normal' human behavior. If so, this has uncomfortable implications for an association of old men who wear dresses, hear voices and practice ritual cannibalism. Self-enforced celibacy is all but unknown among other animal species. If any sexual behavior is out of tune with the natural world, it is surely that of the priesthood.
~ George Monbiot, The Guardian, July 13, 2000

They are preserving the sanctity of marriage, so that two gay men who've been together for twenty-five years can't get married, but a guy can still get drunk in Vegas and marry a hooker at the Elvis chapel! The sanctity of marriage is saved!
~ Lea DeLaria

AIDS is a racial disease of Jews and Niggers, and fortunately it is wiping out the queers. I guess God hates queers for several reasons. There is one big reason to be against queers and that is because every time some white boy is seduced by a queer into becoming a queer, means his white bloodline has run out .
~ J. B. Stoner

Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS by giving money to television preachers?
~ Elayne Boosler

Hear the word of the LORD, America, fag-enablers are worse than the fags themselves, and will be punished in the everlasting lake of fire! ... You telling these miserable, Hell-bound, bath house-wallowing, anal-copulating fags that God loves them!? You have bats in the belfry! ... Not only is homosexuality a sin, but anyone who supports fags is just as guilty as they are. You are both worthy of death.
~ Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Church)

Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness.
~ Sigmund Freud, letter to an American mother's plea to cure her son's homosexuality, 1935

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?
~ James Baldwin

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words of wisdom

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is doubtless one of the most controversial philosphers in history. His works and ideas have been variously held responsible for inspiring nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and even Nazism. Whatever you think of him, he sure is interesting. And he had a killer fuck-off moustache, to boot. It's not really possible to get any kind of overview of his thought, but here are a few miscellaneious quotes...

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What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

God is dead! God stays dead! And we killed him.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?

In heaven all the interesting people are missing.

'Faith' means not wanting to know what is true.

Without music, life would be an error.

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

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It is said that on New York City subways, one can find graffiti reading: "NIETZSCHE IS DEAD." -God

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words of wisdom

Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi (1869 - 1948) is one of the most important figures in 20th Century history, if not in all human history. No short spiel knocked-up by me here could possibly serve as an adequate introduction to this inspiring man and his achievements, so check out Wikipedia for detailed information. Here are just a few short samples of Gandhi's words:

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"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave."

"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
(describing the stages of establishment response to non-violent activism)

"My effort should never be to undermine another's faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith."

"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."

"I do not want my house to be walled in on sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."

"We must respect other religions, even as we respect our own. Mere tolerance thereof is not enough. "

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

"You should be the change that you want to see in the world."

"Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time."

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And just for interest's sake, here are some quotes by others, about Gandhi:

"Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth. " ~ Albert Einstein

"A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you." ~ Marian Wright Edelman

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words of wisdom

Mark Twain (birth-name Samuel Clemens) has been described as the first real American writer. Apart from his many novels, he was also extremely quotable. Here are a few of his notable quips...

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"Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great."

"Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often."

"Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been."

"Let us swear while we may, for in heaven it will not be allowed."

"All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it."

"Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary."

"Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them."

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first."

"History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes."

"All right then, I'll go to hell."

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words of wisdom

Albert Einstein was a very clever man. That's not news to anyone. But his real genius was not in physics or mathematics... it was in his ability to see beyond existing knowledge and develop new ideas. Here are some of his more famous quotes, for your perusal and pondering...

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"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

"Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one."

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

"It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."

"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference!"

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."

and munkey’s personal favourite:

"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."

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