Overheard

A short lesson

In 1861, Charles Darwin wrote in a letter to a friend:

"But I am very poorly today, and very stupid, and hate everybody and everything."

We can have extremely shitty days, and still rise to do great things.

A Quote

There's a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can't earn a billion dollars. You just can't earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labor laws, you can pay people less than what they're worth. But you can't earn that.

A Quote

If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.

--Hanna Arendt

A Quote

Many people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile toward those who challenge it, because truth threatens their sense of certainty.

--Plato

A Quote

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius

A Quote

Kindness is a language the blind can see

and the deaf can hear.

--Mark Twain.

A Declaration

What I say may be heretical

and irresponsible,

but I accept full responsibility

for having said it.

Today's Quote

Victor Cousin

If ignorance is bliss,

there should be

more happy people.

A Quote

In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile. And the rest of us are fucked until we can get our acts together - not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.

--Hunter S. Thompson

A Quote

The Women

Dale Spender

1943 - 2023

Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, for child care, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women's refuges, reforms in the law. If someone says, "Oh, I'm not a feminist", I ask, "Why? What's your problem?"

A Quote

“They got money for war but can’t feed the poor” 

--Tupac Shakur

A Quote

Why do we need to look beyond our borders, and help with what we can?

The world’s troubles do not stay overseas.

                             --Gen George C Marshall

A Quote

If you look at nature carefully,

and really pay attention,

if you're lucky,

you can catch a glimpse

of something deeply hidden.

Mark Speaks

Mark Cuban is a billionaire, and as such, I'm sworn to shit on him.

That said, at least he makes an effort not to be the kind of parasitic power freak that way too many billionaires seem to excel at.

And he knows Trump for the worthless slug that he is:

"As bad as the lack of ethics, lack of character, and lack of honesty, is the fact that he makes no effort to learn anything. He's one of the few human beings on the planet who gets dumber right in front of our faces every day."

From John Fugelsang

(with a tiny bit of editing because I'm egotistical, and I need to "make things a little better")

Here’s the dirty little secret we came to understand in 2025, and it’s not as depressing as it seems:

Losing faith in institutions isn’t nihilism.

It's discernment. It's an informed response by an adult with a living thinking brain to watching dudebro arsonists assume control of the fire department.

A Quote

If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.

                                                            --Carl Jung

Paraphrasing A Quote

The world is my country,

every human is my kin,

and doing good is my religion.

--Thomas Paine

A Quote

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means, "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".

--Isaac Asimov

A Quote

A beggar's mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king's mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who suffer your stupidity.

--R Scott Bakker, from The Judging Eye