#12 06/03/2024

Não existe vácuo politico - there is no such thing as a political vacuum. If you blow a hole in the center of the political system, taking power away from those who have it, then someone else is going to take it. If you want to knock the main players off the stage, you should be paying attention to who is going to take their place. If it is not going to be you, then you had better like the people who are waiting in the wings.

Vinvent Bevins - If We Burn

#11 25/02/2024

What constitutes a problem is not the thing, or the environment where we find the thing, but the conjunction fo the two: something unexpected in a usual place (our favourite aunt in our favourite poker parlour) or something usual in an unexpected place (our favourite poker in our favourite aunt).

Jeanette Winterson - Orange are Not the Only Fruit

#10 18/02/2024

"I think therefore I am."

"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception."

Descarte & Hume

#9 07/02/2024

Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground. Quoted by Julian Baggini in How to Think Like a Philosopher

#8 30/01/2024

From time to time, I would gaze up at the stars after a night shift and think that they looked like a glowing desert, and I myself was a poor child abandoned in the desert... I thought that life was truly an accident among accidents in the universe. The universe was an empty palace, and humankind the only ant in the entire palace. This kind of thinking infused the second half of my life with a conflicted mentality: sometimes I thought life was precious, and everything was so important; but other times I thought humans were insignificant, and nothing was worthwhile. Anyway, my life passed day after day accompanied by this strange feeling, and before I knew it, I was old.

Liu Cixin - The Three Body Problem

#7 06/12/2023

As long as the general population is passive, apethetic, and diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.

Noam Chomsky - Who Rules the World

#6 29/11/2023

My favourite kebab shop! The food is fabulous, mouth watering. The staff are very friendly. Me and my wife sit outside and take our time over our kebab meal, which includes chips and a soft drink, great value. Very happy customers 5/5.

Bernard - Google review

#5 18/11/2023

Surely, this will be my last opportunity to speak to you. The air force is now already bombing the antennas... I will pay with my life for my loyalty to the people. And I tell you all that I am certain that the seed we have planted in the conscience in thousands and thousands of Chileans cannot be held back forever... Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers! These are my last words, and I am sure my sacrifice will not be in vain.

Last radio broadcast of Salvador Allende, 11 Sep 1973. Taken from The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins

#4 08/11/2023

Peter reaches into the trunk, pulls out exotic gift number three and drops it on to the snow, at the feet of a very clever penguin named Harold.

"It looks like another vine." Harold says.

Peter looks up at the sky, at the falling snowflakes, then fixes his eyes on Harold.

"Leopard tails do look like vines, Harry."

"Leopard tails do not have leaves." Harold says. "This, Peter, is a vine."

Peter thinks for a moment, then says, "Of course it's a vine. Any fool can see that."

Daren King - Peter the Penguin Pioneer

#3 20/10/2023

Well, I don't care how long I live. Over this I have no control, but I do care about what kind of life I live, and I can control this. I may not live but another five minutes, but it will be five minutes definitely on my terms.

George Jackson - Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson

#2 15/10/2023

And most of all beware, even in thought, of assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of grief is not a proscenium, a man who wails is not a dancing bear.

Aimé Césaire

#1 02/10/2023

Your blood asks, how were the wealthy and the law interwoven? With what sulfurious iron fabric? How did the poor keep falling into the tribunals?

How did the land become so bitter for poor children, harshly nourished on stone and grief? So it was, and so I leave it written. Their lives wrote it on my brow.

Pablo Neruda - The Judges