"When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches." ~Edward Weston
"donald trump views the truth like this lemur views the supreme court vacancy. i don't care about that in any way, please f***off, i have a banana." -- john oliver
"Democracy embodies justice, free discussion embodies rationality, and it is only through justice and rationality that an issue can be found from the dangers with which modern war is threatening the human race" -- bertrand russell ["a scientist's plea for democracy", 1947]
"trump personifies everything the rest of the world despises about America: casual racism, crass materialism, relentless self-aggrandizement, vulgarity on an epic scale. the fact that so many Republicans are comfortable with the thought of this monumentally unqualified man in the Oval Office shows how warped the party has become." -- paul thomas [the new zealand herald]
"One cannot express something compelling, interesting or inspiring without first having something compelling, interesting or inspiring to express. And so, in pursuit of expressive work, one also becomes motivated to seek those things that are worth expressing: meaningful experiences, complex thoughts, powerful emotions, and useful or interesting knowledge." -- guy tal
"In a world with boundless opportunities for amusement, it's detestable that anyone would choose to get thrills from killing others who ask for nothing from life but the chance to remain alive." -- sir roger moore
"Let’s be honest; blazing skies at sunrise and sunset, wide-angle near-far compositions, etc., while often spectacularly beautiful, have become the photographic equivalent of fast food: momentarily satisfying, requiring little creative effort, and lacking any characteristics to distinguish the sensibilities and expressive powers of their creator from those of a million others." -- guy tal
"there is a very big difference between styling and design. design is about being perceptive of the contemporary culture and creating the future. styling is about borrowing from history." -- karim rashid
“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune.”
[Lois McMaster Bujold, "Shards of Honour"]
"we owe nearly everything to others. generations are also generators. the point of the fruit is the tree, and the point of the tree is the fruit." -- kevin ashton ["how to fly a horse"]
"METAPHOR STEW: Trump is a karma tsunami, the long-imagined chickens of decades of race-baiting and rich-worshiping coming home to roost." -- lolgop [twitter]
after exhausting both
principle and reason
the ancient "not one thing"
that knows not
the bright moonlight.
-- musashi [at nagoya]
lovecraft!? h.p. lovecraft?
lovely lyrical name, isn't it, for such a troubled mind.
-- the librarians
"As an astronaut I spacewalked 220 miles above the Earth. Floating alongside the International Space Station, I watched hurricanes cartwheel across oceans, the Amazon snake its way to the sea through a brilliant green carpet of forest, and gigantic nighttime thunderstorms flash and flare for hundreds of miles along the Equator." -- piers j sellers
haskell: Primarily a CV decoration language. Code is typically written to be admired rather than compiled; this is technically known as the "lazy execution model." -- verity stob
the ordinary reader -- the ordinary audience -- is a barren conceit.
it guarantees a shared mediocrity.
don't preconceive the reader's limitations.
they'll become your own. -- verlyn klinkenborg ["several short sentences about writing"]
"has there ever been a critic of sam harris who is not been accused of misrepresenting him? this is a literal question!"-- cenk uygur
"I happen to be, at this very moment, purposefully misunderstanding Richard Dawkins as a way to generate clicks on some bloggers’ page[s], and so are all of the other mindless hivemind sockpuppets controlled by the aforementioned nameless bloggers." -- consciousness razor
