“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being,”  --Rumi

"It’s written in the things the Hansens don’t say to one another, and by the time anyone notices that, yeah, something is seriously off, it’s already too late. Rowan has already made himself at home.

"That’s the kind of horror that gets under my skin. Not the thing outside, knocking—but the thing already inside, listening."  --Ania Ahlborn about her book _The Unseen_.

"If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”  -- Audre Lorde

"Whether individual or collective, willful blindness doesn’t have a single driver, but many. It is a human phenomenon to which we all succumb in matters little and large. We can’t notice and know everything: the cognitive limits of our brain simply won’t let us. That means we have to filter or edit what we take in. So what we choose to let through and to leave out is crucial. We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering whatever unsettles our fragile egos and most vital beliefs. It’s a truism that love is blind; what’s less obvious is just how much evidence it can ignore. Ideology powerfully masks what, to the uncaptivated mind, is obvious, dangerous, or absurd and there’s much about how, and even where, we live that leaves us in the dark. Fear of conflict, fear of change keeps us that way. An unconscious (and much denied) impulse to obey and conform shields us from confrontation and crowds provide friendly alibis for our inertia. And money has the power to blind us, even to our better selves.

[...]

"Our blindness grows out of the small, daily decisions that we make, which embed us more snugly inside our affirming thoughts and values. And what’s most frightening about this process is that as we see less and less, we feel more comfort and greater certainty. We think we see more — even as the landscape shrinks.

[...]

"The most crucial learning that has emerged from this science is the recognition that we continue to change right up to the moment we die. Every experience and encounter, each piece of new learning, each relationship or reassessment alters how our minds work. And no two experiences are the same. In his work on the human genome, the Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner reminds us that even identical twins will have different experiences in different environments and that that makes them fundamentally different beings. Identical twins develop different immune systems. Mental practice alone can change how our brains operate. The plasticity and responsiveness of our minds is what makes each of us most remarkable… We aren’t automata serving the master computer in our heads, and our capacity for change can never be underestimated.

[…]

"We make ourselves powerless when we choose not to know. But we give ourselves hope when we insist on looking. The very fact that willful blindness is willed, that it is a product of a rich mix of experience, knowledge, thinking, neurons, and neuroses, is what gives us the capacity to change it. Like Lear, we can learn to see better, not just because our brain changes but because we do. As all wisdom does, seeing starts with simple questions: What could I know, should I know, that I don’t know? Just what am I missing here?"  --Margaret Heffernan

"Illusions are the most valuable and necessary of all things ...

"Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth. Roll up that tender air and the plant dies, the colour fades. The earth we walk on is a parched cinder. It is marl we tread and fiery cobbles scorch our feet. By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. ‘Tis waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life."  --Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography

"Humans share much with other animals — the basic needs of food and drink or sleep, for example — but there are additional mental and emotional needs and desires which are perhaps unique to us. To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see overall patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. And we need freedom (or at least the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves, whether with telescopes and microscopes and our ever-burgeoning technology or in states of mind which allow us to travel to other worlds, to transcend our immediate surroundings. We need detachment of this sort as much as we need engagement in our lives… transports that make our consciousness of time and mortality easier to bear. We seek a holiday from our inner and outer restrictions, a more intense sense of the here and now, the beauty and value of the world we live in."  --Oliver Sacks

"We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out - and we have only just begun."  -- Neil deGrasse Tyson

"There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself."  --Herman Hesse

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why they call it the present."  --My friend John in San Felipe quoting Anon*

*https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/07/26/past-history/

Top 15 Past, Present, & Future Quotes of all time (by Matshona Dhliwayo)

1. If the past could be changed, it would not exist. If the future could be stopped, it would not survive. If the present could be avoided, it would not prevail.

2. The past is filled with pain, the present with opportunity, and the future with uncertainty.

3. The past is a closed door, the present is an open one, and the future is an approaching one.

4. Don’t mourn over the past; it has no pity for you. Don’t cry over the present; it has no sympathy for you, and don’t weep over the future; it has no mercy on you.

5. The past is kind enough to give you lessons. The present is kind enough to give you opportunities. The future is kind enough to give you both.

6. Forgive those who hurt you yesterday. Reward those who help you today. Remember those who help you tomorrow.

7. When your past tries to haunt you tell it you don’t believe in ghosts.

8. You cannot marry your past without divorcing your future.

9. Yesterday says, “Forget me, but learn from me.” Today says, “Embrace me, yet utilize me.” Tomorrow says, “Anticipate me, then prepare for me.”

10. Live for your dreams, not your memories.

11. Marry your future, court your present, and divorce your past.

12. Dream of the future. Act for the future. Be wise in the present.

13. Thank the past for all the lessons it taught you; anticipate the future for all the blessings it has in store for you.

14. Be wise enough to learn from the past, shrewd enough to capitalize on the present, and clever enough to prepare for the future.

15. Live each day as if it were your last; love each day as if you will live forever.

“Dear past, I survived you. Dear present, I’m ready for you. Dear future, I’m coming for you.” ~Matshona Dhliwayo

"The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."  --Albert Einstein

“I can’t think of anything more vile and small and pathetic than terrorizing the smallest, most vulnerable community of people who want nothing from you, except the right to exist.”  --Pedro Pascal

"It is almost banal to say so, yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis."  --Henry Miller 

Hitler for Trump

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”  --Adolf Hitler

“The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous.

In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.”  --Adolf Hitler

“In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility. In the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.“  --Adolf Hitler

“The frailest woman will become a heroine when the life of her own child is at stake.

And only the will to save the race and native land, which offers protection to the race, has in all ages been the urge which has forced men to face the weapons of their enemies.”  --Adolf Hitler

"One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

"Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reason falls on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.

"In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

"For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reason, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison