a selection of favourite quotations
some of them in german, don't want to translate them

All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky, to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing.
Yoda

They don't know how the world is shaped. And so they give it a shape, and try to make everything fit it. They separate the right from the left, the man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They only want to count to two.
Emma Bull, "Bone Dance"

Ein geistreicher Mensch hat, in gänzlicher Einsamkeit an seinen eigenen Gedanken und Phantasien vortreffliche Unterhaltung.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Und Jesus setzte sich dem Gotteskasten gegenüber und sah zu, wie das Volk Geld einlegte in den Gotteskasten. Und viele Reiche legten viel ein. Und es kam eine arme Witwe und legte zwei Scherflein ein; das macht zusammen einen Pfennig. Und er rief seine Jünger zu sich und sprach zu ihnen: Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Diese arme Witwe hat mehr in den Gotteskasten gelegt als alle, die etwas eingelegt haben. Denn sie haben alle etwas von ihrem Überfluss eingelegt; diese aber hat von ihrer Armut ihre ganze Habe eingelegt, alles, was sie zum Leben hatte.
Die Bibel

Wenn jeder Werktätige, jeder Arbeiter ein Gewehr in seinen Händen gehabt hätte, wäre es in Chile nicht zum faschistischen Putsch gegen Allende gekommen.
Fidel Castro

Der Sündenfall aller Parteien beginnt, wenn sie nur noch das Mögliche wollen.
Charles Tschopp

... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. "I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming.
Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"

Den Bestrebungen derjenigen, die von sich glauben, die Weisheit gepachtet zu haben, ziehe ich die Ratschläge des Volkes vor.
Simon Bolivar

Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
Henry Spencer

Nie sollte man seine Armut gegen Ehrlosigkeit eintauschen.
Pierre Carlet de Marivaux, "Das Leben der Marianne"

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

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Krishnamurti

Verzaubert hast du mich,
Geliebte, meine Braut!
Ein Blick aus deinen Augen,
und ich war gebannt!
Sag, birgt er einen Zauber,
der Schmuck an deinem Hals?
Hohenslied 4.9

some thoughts about democracy

1. statistically the majority of people is less intelligent then a smaller minority; a dictatorship of stupidity may be the final result
2. all these quite necessary rules of minority protection are always written by a majority in some way
3. taking it from theory to practice it often seems to end in some kind of silly two party system without real differences
4. thousand people having thousand slightly different but good ideas are chanceless against two people sharing the same bad idea
5. what means the possibility to decide or elect without access to crucial background information or the time to read and understand it?
6. in practice going to elections whenever you can doesn't really seem to end all these every day problems like lies, bribery, corruption, suppression, fear, poverty etc.
7. please don't get me wrong, it is not that I really think there is a better way than democracy; the right to elect written down to paper just doesn't seem to be the only thing a healthy society needs

seven friends of war
written by myself several years ago

1. thousand times a class you see the day
   when everybody has to do it your way
   the striving for power is your primary occupation
   you won't give up to kick and pray
   until the others will feel their own suffocation
2. you lived your life in a common style
   the police never changed your empty file
   one day a couple of cops caught you rough
   and the questions you answered raised to a pile
   the experienced malpractice made you tough
3. your school is over your work is complete
   now time should be right to relax and read
   but this kind of boredom is not in your head
   you're still searching for the real fun and heat
   so let's perform something dumb instead
4. the TV shows it not only after nine
   violence is great and violence is fine
   the army does the job which must be done
   cause there was a command, a card and a line
   you still can't believe why they don't try to run
5. you had a job and you thought to have won
   but you were wrong cause the struggle went on
   some streets away they drive bigger cars every year
   they don't know a reaon why stopping to con
   at times of evil poverty, exploitation and fear
6. you saw a man who was somehow strange
   he wasn't like you even from a long range
   you decided to kill him when he was back
   everyone confirms racism means change
   and everyone knows bad men are black
7. it's a long time ago and nowbody knows
   but in your opinion it's still far to close
   and that's why revenge is the only way out
   you killed them and you inspected the rows
   the duty is done now it's time to be proud