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nationalism nature necessity need neighbour neutrality new age news Nigeria noise normality nostalgia nudity numeracy
A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours. W. R. Inge
Nature is a hanging judge.
Even the nature-worship which Pagans have felt, even the nature-love which Pantheists have felt, ultimately depends as much on some implied purpose and positive good in things, as does the direct thanksgiving which Christians have felt. Indeed Nature is at best merely a female name we give to Providence when we are not treating it very seriously; a piece of feminist mythology. There is a sort of fireside fairy tale, more fitted for the hearth than for the altar; and in that what is called Nature can be a sort of fairy godmother. But there can only be fairy godmothers because there are godmothers; and there can only be godmothers because there is God. G K Chesterton {Autobiography, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1936, p. 348}
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are *not* part of "Nature" - but beavers and their dams *are*. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e., his own self-hatred. -- Robert A. Heinlein, _Time Enough For Love_
If we can find God only as he is revealed in nature we have no moral God. --Reinhold Niebuhr, _Christian Century_, April 22, 1926
I do account it, not the meanest, but an impiety montrous' to confound God and nature, be it but in terms. --Walter Raleigh, _History of the World_, 1614
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law&endash;
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed&endash;
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) In Memoriam A. H. H.:
55.
Farber's Fourth Law: Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.
The greatest hunger a person has is to be needed. Help create that feeling in others. - Sadhu Sundar Singh
668: The Neighbour of the Beast Anonymous
No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He
sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions
and ways of thinking.
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) "Patterns of Culture," ch. 1,
1934.
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance. - G.K. Chesterton The Speaker, 12/15/00
He who allows oppression shares the crime. --Erasmus Darwin
People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favour of the status quo.-- Max Eastman (1883-1969)
I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan. -- CS Lewis.
Now there sits a man with an open mind. You can feel the draft from here. -- Groucho Marx
For observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th'observer's sake.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) Moral Essays.
To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it. -- Ayn Rand
A new age of magic interpretation of the world is coming, of interpretation in terms of the will and not of the intelligence. There is no such thing as truth either in the moral or the scientific sense. Adolf Hitler
One reason why people find [Life-Force religion] so attractive is itgives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life- Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen? ~C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity".
Confronted with a cancer or a slum the Pantheist can say, "If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you would realize that this also is God." The Christian replies, "Don't talk damned nonsense." --C. S. Lewis, _The Case for Christianity_, 1943
There is the fact of the nearness of God, what the books call his "immanence". Push it too far and you have "pantheism"--a God lost in the world to which he is near.--Cleland B. McAfee, _Near to the Heart of God_, 1954
The religion of beauty, imagination, and philosophy, without constraint moral or intellectual, a religion speculative and self-indulgent. Pantheism, indeed, is the great deceit which awaits the Age to come. --John Henry Newman, _Difficulties of Anglicans_, 1850
The chief objection I have to pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word world.--Arthur Schopenhauer, _A Few Words On Pantheism_, 1851
The news media is in a feeding frenzy. George Bush, 1988
In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation".(Voltaire, letter, 28 Aug. 1760)
Nigeria is not a great nation," he wrote. "It is one of the most disorderly nations in the world. It is one of the most corrupt, insensitive, inefficient places under the sun. It is one of the most expensive countries and one of those that give [the] least value for money. It is dirty, callous, noisy, ostentatious, dishonest and vulgar. In short, it is among the most unpleasant places on earth! Chinua Achebe quoted in Editorial in The New Republic Mar 22, 1999
West and East Nigeria are as different as Ireland from
Germany. The North is as different from either as China.
Obafemi Awolowo, quoted in John Gunther, _Inside Africa_,
1955
Nigerians as a group, frankly,are marvellous scammers. I mean, it is in their natural culture. General Collin Powell
Nigeria, land of the greasy palm. -- Week Ending, BBC
Radio 4For some reasons perhaps deeply rooted in patriotism
(however misplaced), hope or faith in the black man's
ability to rule himself, youthful exuberance and a great
deal of ignorance, Macaulay, Zik, Imoudu, Awolowo, Sardauna,
Enahoro etc., went to town demanding that the British must
go. They did. Nigerians sang for joy. We should have wept in
self-pity.
Dele Sobowale February 19, 1995, Sunday Vanguard.
Of all the varieties of modern pollution, noise is the
most insidious.
R Lacey and D Danziger, The Year 1000, Little, Brown and
Co,GB, 1999, p40.
NORMAL IS NOTHING MORE THAN A CYCLE ON A WASHING MACHINE Whoopi Goldberg
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Why should I waste my time reliving the past when I can spend it worrying about the future?
The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.
Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense and the past perfect.
Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. --Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960)
In every age the 'good old days' are a myth. No one ever thinks they were good at the time. For every age consists of crises that seem intolerable to those who live through them. Brooks Atkinson (1894- )_Once Around the Sun_ [1951], "February 8"
Nostalgia is a seductive liar. -George W. Ball
The past should be a springboard not a hammock. Irving Ball
We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time. -- Art Buchwald
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet. ~ Cyril Connolly, in David Pryce-Jones, Journals and Memoirs (1983)
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past. -Robertson Davies
When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood. Sam Ewing
You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. --Jan Glidewell
The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages. Horace Greeley
When I grow up I want to be a little boy.- Joseph Heller (1923-1999) "Something Happened."
Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the
world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising
generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former
times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age
in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no
more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the
world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and
reverence.
Samuel Johnson: Rambler #50
Ah tell me not that memory
Sheds gladness o'er the past;
What is recalled by faded flowers
Save that they did not last?
Letitia Landon (1802-1838) Despondency.
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.
Paul McCartney -"Yesterday"
In general, life is better than it ever has been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word: 'dentistry. - P.J. O'Rourke--All the Trouble in the World, p.2
Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.-- Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18)
People get nostalgic about a lot of things I don't think they were that crazy about the first time around. Beryl Pfizer
These are the good old days.
Just you wait and see.
Steve Turner
Perhaps one day this too will be pleasant to remember. Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. Vergil, Aeneid, Book 1, line 203:
There has never been an age that did not applaud the past and lament the present. --Lillian Eichler Watson _Light From Many Lamps_
Nostalgia is like an anesthetic; you experience no pain, only a beautiful haze. When you grow older, what matters is not the way it was, but the way you remember it. --Roger and Natalie Whittaker _So Far, So Good_
I seem to have heard that observation before. . . . It has all the vitality of error and all the tediousness of an old friend." -- Oscar Wilde
A flying saucer results when a nudist spills his coffee.
This was not the crux of the problem presented by Mrs.
Crundale.The crux was simply that she had designed costumes
for Ariel, all the goddesses and the Nymphs which required
that their bosomsbe bare, not partly or fleetingly bare, but
completely and indeed aggressively....
Mrs Crundale's position was clear, and had been clear for
years. She was an Artist, and to her the human body was
simply a Mass, with a variety of Planes.... Nobody connected
with the Little Theatre quite liked to explain to Mrs
Crundale that the breasts of several well-known young ladies
of Salterton, though undoubtedly Planes, had other
connotations, and could not fittingly be unveiled at a
public performance. But Valentine did so.
"These dresses will look charming then they are standing
still, Mrs. Crundale," said she, "but when the girls dance
your line will be completely spoiled. I suggest that you
revise these slightly. giving some concealment for a
strapless brassiere underneath."
And Mrs Crundale, who had really only wanted to make the
point that the human body was nothing to her but an
arrangement of planes, agreed without a murmur.
Robertson Davies, _Tempest-Tost_
The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to [the artist Antonio]Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room." - William Hazlitt, 1778 - 1830
Nudity is like grapefruit. There is more to it than meets the eye.- GJW
Lots of people can't count to 10. They are usually the ones in front of you of you in the supermarket express lane. --Sam Ewing , The Saturday Evening Post , 11/29/96