I remember when the "wise" elders said "Drugs are for those who can't handle reality" which was immediately co-opted by the young whipper-snappers as "Reality is for those who can't handle drugs!". I'd like to try it out with the word belief in place of the word drugs.
-- I'm sure someone else has already thought of this.

A low-energy policy allows for a wide choice of lifestyles and cultures. If, on the other hand, a society opts for high energy consumption, its social relations must be dictated by technocracy and will be equally degrading whether labeled capitalist or socialist.
-- Ivan Illich (quoted here)

I hear this all the time: "Atheism is nothing but a religion." Well, atheism is a religion like the "off" switch on a television is a channel.
-- Ojo Taylor from a speech on loosing his faith.

Nasrallah: Episode One -- Julian Assange
This is precious:
Starting at 24:11 Assange poses a masterful question, an attack if you will, which is accepted by Nasrallah, not with equanimity, but with the joy of a man who has certain knowledge his riposte will neutralize the attack. I may be deluding myself, but what I see revealed in Nasrallah by this is a man who is at least a deist and possibly even an atheist who has made his peace with God and religion for what it is worth; a wise and clever man.

There was a version of this in which his comment on "Thou shalt not kill" was that it applied only to members of your own tribe which seems obvious given the context.

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If I could get the world to respond to one question it would be: Do we have the courage to let go of our beliefs in order to grab on to what is true.
- Sarah E Maynew

The practice of believing on faith what we want has many advantages. They are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.
- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein inspired by Bertrand Russel

An Axiom of Spiritual Calculus: the spirit of a relationship is not a combination of the spirits, it is the spirit of those combined.
- me

Dried peas and beans, being rather on the dull side, respond readily -- like a good many dull people -- to the right contacts.
- Irma von Starkloff Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Joy of cooking

Too few of the wise are ambitious,
and too few of the ambitious are wise.
- me

The majority of people mistake the charismatic for the wise.
- me

Inertia versus dissipation:
Inertia only has the advantage maintaining objects at rest.
- me

The measure of a man is what pisses him off!
- my father

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable one persists in adapting the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw

The optimist declares we live in the best of all possible worlds!
[Sigh...]The pessimist is afraid he's right.
- ?