LightSun's chosen quotes of wisdom

"Beware, as long as you live, of judging people by appearances"
Jean De La Fontaine (1621-1695)
Fables Choisies Mises en Vers, Book VI, Fable 5, 1668

I have learned not to trust my first impressions of people. Some of my better friends are people to whom I initially took an irrational dislike.

Romana wrote, "I have learned not to trust my first impressions of people. Some
of my better friends are people to whom I initially took an irrational dislike."
I find this extraordinary and enlightened. I find myself working with people who
I dislike, don't like & do not fully trust. I try to establish boundaries. I seek to be
a role model. Not to be defensive and looking for the truth's in the other person's
words. It is a difficult process, but I learn more about myself. Which is all important,
even crucial to my self development.

lightsun wrote:

"Ipsa scientia potestas est"
(Knowledge is power)
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Sacred Meditations. From the 11th Meditation : Of Heresies 1597

yeah, and time is money. know the meditations.

Good morning, lavender. It is 8:57 am here, on a Saturday morning. I hope all, or
most is well with you. In Greek mythology there are nine muses. Well, you, as well
as Romana inspire me. I listened to & read your response & reaction to the Big
Thunder quote, in spirit/mystical mountain. Your concerns are very valid and I will
seek to make an amendment.

"The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me"
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, by Sir David Brewster, 1855

"There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us"
Dennis Diderot (1713-1784)
On the Interpretation of Nature', Essay no. 15, 1753 from The Encyclopedia or A Systematic
Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts, 1751-1772



There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us : observation of nature,
reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts ; reflection combines them ;
experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Our observation of nature must be
diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means
combined ; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.
Denis Diderot
"On the Interpretation of Nature", Essay no. 15, 1753 from The Encyclopedia or A Systematic
Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts, 1751-1772

"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
The Social Contract, 1762

"We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal ; that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Draft of The Declaration of Independence, 11-28 June 1776

"All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in
matters of religion"
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom 1786

"The color of the skin is in no way connected with the strength of the mind or
intellectual powers"
Benjamin Franklin (1731-1806)
Preface to Almanac 2, 1792

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used
any other, and I trust I never shall."
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
The Age of Reason 1794

"Women will no longer made the slaves of, or dependent upon men...They will be equal in education,
rights, privileges and personal liberty."
Robert Owen
A New View of Society 1813

"They charge me with fanaticism. If it to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my
sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable
fanatics ever permitted to be at large."
William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
Speech in the House of Commons, 19 June 1816

"Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections, as leaves
are to the life of trees. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots."
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
American Note-Books, 9 March 1853

lightsun wrote:

"Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
The Social Contract, 1762

and should we not deal with it, beyond the conventions of conversation we use?

when we cannot kill each other one way, then there must be another?
concrete: swords to ploughshares, but the chinese solution to the mind threatening the social status quo?

what freedom wants and what freedom is, cannot be summarized and generalized anymore in this world or in a future one based on this one.

i do not need to think because someone else may have it all made already without and even be a role model for it: good grief, why even try to live in this case?

lightsun: have mercy. grace speaking.

"There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher"
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Les Miserables, 1862

"The legal subordination if one sex to another-is wrong in itself"
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
The Subjection of Women, 1869


The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes-
the legal subordination of one sex to another-is wrong in itself, and now one of the
chief hindrances to human improvement.'
John Stuart Mill
The Subjection of Women, 1869

"If the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness"
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
The Brothers Karamazov, 1879-1880

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
'The New Colossus', 1883

lightsun wrote:

"There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher"
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
Les Miserables, 1862

the kind of resignation that sparks hope for compassion. reasonable?

thanks, lightsun.

"The bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of
woman's emancipation"
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)
Free Thought Magazine, September 1886

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834-1902)
Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 1887

"In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit"
Anton Chekov (1860-1904)
The Seagull, 1896

"What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?"
W.H. Davies (1871-1940)
'Leisure', Songs of Joy, 1911