And all the time - such is the tragi-comedy of our situation - we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more "drive”, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or "creativity”. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
C. S. LewisRelated topics
across bid castrate civilization clamor coming continue demand drive dynamism enterprise expect find function impossible men laugh midst needs open organ periodical remove rendering self-sacrifice simplicity situation sort statement time tragi-comedy virtue honour creativityRelated quotes
The demand for a statement of a candidate's religious belief can have no meaning except that there may be discrimination for or against him because of that belief. Discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. The inevitable result of entering upon such a practice would be an abandonment of our real freedom of conscience and a reversion to the dreadful conditions of religious dissension which in so many lands have proved fatal to true liberty, to true religion, and to all advance in civilization.
Theodore Roosevelt
The anonymity issue is a big question. As long as people can disguise cyber attacks and as long as there is a sort of question mark over who is responsible, then the problem will continue to exist. And of course what happens in response to that is that there is a move to try and refashion the Internet so that anonymity is impossible, which of course leads to fears among all sorts of groups - civil rights groups, NGOs, and political parties - that the Internet is going to be used simply as a method of control. So these are very sensitive issues.
Misha Glenny
I advocate an alliance of democratic states, with a dual purpose. One, to promote what I call open society. I talk about an alliance of open societies which would first foster the development of open societies within individual countries, because there's a lot that needs to be done in that effort. And secondly, to establish basic international law and international institutions that you need for a global, open society. So that's my sort of broad concept. Now, I have not worked out the details, because I don't think it's for me to work out the details. It's for them to work out the details.
George Soros
I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.
Lin Yutang
With respect to the use of this sparkling coloured material [butterfly wings, around 1955] – the constituent parts of which remain indistinguishable – with the aim of producing a very vivid effect of scintillation, I realised that, for me, this responds to needs of the same order as those that formerly led me, in many drawings and paintings, to organize my lines and patches of colour so that the objects represented would meld into everything around them, so that the result would be a sort of continuous, universal soup with an intensive flavour of life.
Jean Dubuffet
