Citatos

“The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation.”

~ David Foster Wallace

“Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

~ Liaudies išmintis

Are we just filling with noise that which should be left silent? Our society is noisy, a particular kind of noisy. Stimulating like nature, but not grounding. Full of energy, but rarely nurturing.

~ https://versuszone.com/2022/02/02/what-distinguishes-the-great-existential-films/

If it is only news for a day, it isn’t important.
If it’s only important today, it’s not important.

~ J. P.

“Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”
~ Oscar Wilde

Oh there’s a hole up in the sky from where the angels fall
To bring us sword and sire children that grow up too tall

Oh there’s a hole down in the ground where all the dead men go
Down purgatory’s highways they gun their souls

~ Babylon Whores – Errata Stigmata

“I was fighting with temptation
But I didn’t want to win
A man like me don’t like to see
Temptation caving in

Your crazy fragrance all around
Your secrets in my view”

~ Leonard Cohen — On The Level

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

~ Asimov

“Beliefs reached through emotions cannot be changed with logic and facts.”

~ Explanation why it’s not possible to change certain people’s opinions about [vaccines/conspiration theories/…/etc.]

“You are the master of your universe, and yet you are dripping with rat blood and feces. Your enormous mind literally vegetating by your own hand.
I have no doubt that you would be bored senseless by therapy, the same way I’m bored when I brush my teeth and wipe my ass. Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is it’s not an adventure. There’s no way to do it so wrong you might die. It’s just work. And the bottom line is, some people are okay going to work, and some people well, some people would rather die.
Each of us gets to choose.”

~ Rick and Morty season 3 episode 3 therapist monologue

“Ir kas nėra paukščiu užgimęs, neturi ties bedugnėmis ir savo lizdo sukti.”

~ F. Nietzsche “Taip kalbėjo Zaratustra”

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“Milžiniškas užgesęs ekranas simbolizuoja metafizinį mūsų civilizacijos siaubą.”

~ LNK “Lankos”, 1998

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“A little bit of fire at the right time can prevent forest from burning to the ground later on.”

~ J. P.

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“The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us”

~ Paul Valéry

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“This is very important — to take leisure time. Pace is the essence. Without stopping entirely and doing nothing at all for great periods, you’re gonna lose everything…just to do nothing at all, very, very important. And how many people do this in modern society? Very few. That’s why they’re all totally mad, frustrated, angry and hateful.”

~ Charles Bukowski

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Data does not speak for itself. It must be interpreted.

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“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them.”

~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

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“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over, so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

~ James Boswell

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“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. <…> I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”

~ “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Jonathan Haidt and Gregory Lukianoff

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“As long as you do not know how to die and come to life again, you are but a sorry traveler on this dark earth.”
~ Goethe, West-ostlicher Divan

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“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

~ Charles Bukowski

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“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear”

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Inform without overburdening

~ For communication

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“I value entertainment immensely but saying that it solves unhappiness is like saying that prostitution solves loneliness. Unhappiness is a core element of the human experience. It is not solvable because it is not a problem.”

~ porphyrogene

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“Nereges akis aš įsmeigiau į dangų, į tą pilką begalinį dangų, kuriame viešpatavo beprotis Dievas, savo pramogai išradęs gyvenimą ir mirtį.”

~ E. M. Remarkas

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“Plaktuku įkalti varžtai laikosi geriau nei atsuktuvu įsuktos vinys.”

~ Liaudies išmintis

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“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is…”

~ Folklore

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“Those who travel with the current will always feel they are good swimmers.”

~ Shankar Vedantam ***

“When I was young, any time my family got a new VCR or stereo, I would press every button, plug and unplug every cord and cable, just to see what everything did. With time, I learned how it all worked. And because I knew how it all worked, I was often the only person in the house who would use the stuff.
Like many millennial children, my parents looked on as if I were some sort of prodigy. To them, the fact that I could program the VCR without looking at the instruction manual made me the Second Coming of Tesla. They would shake their heads and guffaw and say, “How do you use that thing?” and I’d just kind of shrug and not really understand the question. There are buttons. You press them and see what happens. Eventually, you learn to press the right ones.
It’s easy to look back at my parents’ generation and chuckle at their technophobia. But the further I get into adulthood, the more I realize that we all have areas of our lives where we’re like my parents with the new VCR: we sit and stare and shake our heads and say, “But how?” When really, it’s as simple as just doing it.”

~ Mark Manson

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“[It] doesn’t mean anything except itself.”

“It only gets complicated if you try to explain it.”

“Reality escapes all concepts.”

“On its own and into the unknown”

“You can’t bite your own teeth” / “The fire doesn’t burn itself”

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

“Free from clutching at themselves the hands can handle; free from looking after themselves the eyes can see; free from trying to understand itself thought can think. In such feeling, seeing, and thinking life requires no future to complete itself nor explanation to justify itself. In this moment it is finished.”

~Alan Watts talking and citing various Zen, Buddhism and Hindu authors

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—– SONG LYRICS —–

Kansas — Carry On Wayward Son

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

Though my eyes could see, I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think, I still was a mad man

Masquerading as a man of reason
My charade is the event of the season

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about, I’m like a ship on the ocean

Ensiferum — The Longest Journey

Could my ruin have come,
My day of trouble have arrived,
In these tuonele cabins
These abodes of the dead land?
Far beyond the dark stream pagan souls will
Roam those cold lands wild and free.
Wait for the sign; a blood red sky.
Then beyond the dark stream we will ride.
The path of mortals,
So narrow and brutal.
Only bravest of them all
Will find true valors
Decaying souls of men,
Who trust in false omens,
Will drown in the stream
With their untrue beliefs.
He’s been drifting
For so long,
Searching for the land.
Where heroes roam.
In the horizon,
The last ray of light,
A breeze from the other side,
Before he dies.
Dividing walls of stone,
Eternal heathen Throne,
Beneath the cold starlight.
Revealed for the purest sight.
Through constant affliction
Towards alleviation,
When a searing star is near.
Carry on, you’re almost here
Far beyond the dark stream we’ll meet again.
Across the wilderness and we will be home.
The longest journey of them all,
Has to be made all alone
A flame in the skyline reaching the stars
Guiding the seeker through the night!
Gather your strength, don’t be afraid.
Far beyond the dark stream, we’ll meet again.

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Leonard Cohen — You Want It Darker

There’s a lover in the story
But the story’s still the same
There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame

A million candles burning
For the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Eime Su Mumis…

Vėlės išminčių slepias vilkais
Miškuos, kurie kadais buvo šventais,
Jų akys žiba ledine šviesa
Kaip žvaigždės – tolimos, šviečia nakčia.
Kaip vakaras saulę skandina ugny,
Taip grimzta svajonės gilyn užmaršty,
Pavirsdamos dulkėm ir smėlio krislais,
Po kojomis tų, kur gyvens amžinai…

…Eime su mumis… kur veda ugnis
rymo prieš saulę senoliai žili,
ateina iš karo didvyrių būrys,
kur traukia dainas išnaikinta gentis…
…Eime su mumis… kur veda ugnis
skrenda varnai, kur užgims ateitis,
kelias toks tolimas, tartum mirtis,
kelias toks artimas, kaip pražūtis…

Po milžinų paliktais akmenim,
Giliausiuos urvuos rusena ugnis,
Ta, kuri šildė Kūrėjų rankas,
Ta, kuri uždega naktį žvaigždes.
…Rankose dega ugnis…
Skradžiai tuštumą sklinda šviesa,
Pakyla varnai, nusileidžia naktis…
Ir šnabžda… Eime su mumis…

Karo dvasia

Dunda žemė, staugia vėjas
Aš, nuožmus mirties skelbėjas
šelstu kaip audra
Čia žaibai, tenai perkūnai
Ris visus mirties siaubūnai

Iš “Siela” dainų:

Giedras nakties dangus šaukia tave…
Ir tada tu palieki tvankumą,
draugus, neatkimštus vyno butelius tris,
tu išeini į naktį užvėręs duris,
tu išeini pasitikt savo žvaigždės.
—
O danguj beveik pilnatis
Be vienos dienos pilnatis
Be vienos dienos kažkam gyvenimas
Be vienos dienos kažkam mirtis
—
Jei tavyje kažko tai trūksta
Tai tavyje per daug kažko
Aukų laužai liepsnoja, rūksta
Atėjo laikas kažką aukot

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Don’t tread on me:

Once you provoke her, rattling of her tail
Never begins it, never, but once engaged
Never surrenders, showing the fangs of rage

Threaten no more
To secure peace is to prepare for war
So be it
Settle the score