you don't call a man a hated name

Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience

The mass of men who serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these men are commonly esteemed as good citizens. Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officeholders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few; as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.





THAT IS THE HEART OF IT. NOW BEGIN IN THE MIDDLE, AND LATER WE LEARN THE BEGINNING; THE END WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF.



- "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman.

Shakespear - Antony and Cleopatra (2.2.--)

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety

George Orwell - 1984

The huge and simple question would have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in effect it was unanswerable even now. Remember a million useless things, but all the relevant facts are outside the range of vision.


The claims to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.

George Orwell - 1984

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Lemony Snicket - The Austere Academy

A good night's sleep helps you perform well in school, and so if you're a student you should always get a good night's sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall to the wayside.







this is about writing, not reading.