November 3

day of the year

Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician. ~ Charlie Chaplin
2005
Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

~ Judy Garland as "Dorothy Gale" in The Wizard of Oz
2006
Art is a revolt against fate. ~ André Malraux (born 3 November 1901)
2007
Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan. ~ Wilhelm Reich (died 3 November 1957)
  • proposed by Kalki (Reich died in prison on 3 November 1957)
2008
Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness. ~ Wilhelm Reich
2009
Athirst for personal salvation, the West forgets that many religions had but a vague notion of the life beyond the grave; true, all great religions stake a claim on eternity, but not necessarily on man's eternal life. ~ André Malraux
2010
Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily... ~ Wilhelm Reich (date of death)
2011
The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness. ~ André Malraux (born November 3, 1901)
2012
Once the masterpiece has emerged, the lesser works surrounding it fall into place; and it then gives the impression of having been led up to and foreseeable, though actually it is inconceivable — or, rather, it can only be conceived of once it is there for us to see it.
~ André Malraux ~
2013
History may clarify our understanding of the supreme work of art, but can never account for it completely; for the Time of art is not the same as the Time of history.
~ André Malraux ~
2014
Natural work democracy is politically neither "left" nor "right." It embraces anyone who does vital work; for this reason, its orientation is only and alone forward. It has no inherent intention of being against ideologies, including political ideologies. On the other hand, if it is to function, it will be forced to take a firm stand, on a factual basis, against any ideology or political party which puts irrational obstacles in its path. Yet, basically, work democracy is not "against," as is the rule with politics, but "for"; for the formulation and solution of concrete tasks.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2015
Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard.
~ Amartya Sen ~
2016
If "freedom" means, first of all, the responsibility of every individual for the rational determination of his own personal, professional and social existence, then there is no greater fear than that of the establishment of general freedom. Without a thoroughgoing solution of this problem there never will be a peace lasting longer than one or two generations. To solve this problem on a social scale, it will take more thinking, more honesty and decency, more conscientiousness, more economic, social and educational changes in social mass living than all the efforts made in previous and future wars and post-war reconstruction programs taken together.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2017
At Ragnarok the world as we know it will be destroyed. But that is not the end. After a long time, a time of healing, a new universe will be created, one better and cleaner and free from the evils of this world. It too will last for countless millennia... until again the forces of evil and cold contend against the forces of goodness and light... and again there is a time of rest, followed by a new creation and another chance for men. Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect, but over and over again the race of men gets another chance to do better than last time, ever and again without end.
~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
in
~ Job: A Comedy of Justice ~
2018
Political ideological systems are based on conceptions of the natural life process. They may further or hinder the natural life process. They themselves, however, do not function at the roots of the social process. They may be democratic; in that case they further the natural human life process. They may be authoritarian and dictatorial; in that case they are its deadly enemy.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2019
In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2020
I contend to be a fighter for pureness and truth. I hesitate, because I am afraid of you and your attitude towards truth. To say the truth about you is dangerous to life.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2021
Honest pioneer work in the field of science has always been, and will continue to be, life's pilot. On all sides, life is surrounded by hostility. This puts us under an obligation.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2022
The vital energies regulate themselves naturally without compulsive duty or compulsive morality — both of which are sure signs of existing antisocial impulses.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
2023
Now and then
I miss you
Oh, now and then
I want you to be there for me
Always to return to me

I know it's true
It's all because of you
And if you go away
I know you'll never stay.
~ John Lennon ~
  • proposed by Kalki; in regard of today's [2023·11·02] release of "the final Beatles song".
2024
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Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate. ~ Ulysses S. Grant, became president that day.


Rooting in work is crucial to any accomplishment. Rooting in mere enthusiasm will in the long run force illusory measures to keep the fires of empty enthusiasm going. And this makes politics and politicians. ~ Wilhelm Reich (date of death)

  • 3 Kalki 18:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:49, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 17:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Our characteristic response to the mutilated statue, the bronze dug up from the earth, is revealing. It is not that we prefer time-worn bas-reliefs, or rusted statuettes as such, nor is it the vestiges of death that grip us in them, but those of life. Mutilation is the scar left by the struggle with Time, and a reminder of it — Time which is as much a part of ancient works of art as the material they are made of, and thrusts up through the fissures, from a dark underworld, where all is at once chaos and determinism. ~ André Malraux

  • 3 InvisibleSun 19:49, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 but I would give it a 3 if it was trimmed to start from "Mutilation is the scar left by the struggle with Time, and a reminder of it — Time which is as much a part of ancient works of art as the material they are made of, and thrusts up through the fissures, from a dark underworld, where all is at once chaos and determinism." Zarbon 17:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 Kalki 01:04, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Great things come crashing down upon themselves – such is the limit of growth ordained by heaven for success. ~ Marcus Annaeus Lucanus


The sin of thousands always goes unpunished. ~ Marcus Annaeus Lucanus


Athirst for personal salvation, the West forgets that many religions had but a vague notion of the life beyond the grave; true, all great religions stake a claim on eternity, but not necessarily on man's eternal life.
~ André Malraux ~

The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves… is what I call hell.
~ André Malraux ~

The character structure of modern man, who reproduces a six-thousand-year-old patriarchal authoritarian culture is typified by characterological armoring against his inner nature and against the social misery which surrounds him. This characterolgical armoring of the character is the basis of isolation, indigence, craving for authority, fear of responsibility, mystic longing, sexual misery, and neurotically impotent rebelliousness.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~

What is new in work democracy is: that for the first time in the history of sociology, a possible future regulation of human society is derived not from ideologies or conditions that must be created, but from natural processes that have been present and have been developing from the very beginning. Work-democratic "politics" is distinguished by the fact that it rejects all politics and demagogism.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~
  • 3 ♌︎Kalki ⚓︎ 20:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC) for this or perhaps a more extensive variant translation of it:
What is new in work democracy is: that for the first time in the history of sociology a possible future order of human society is deduced not from ideologies or from conditions yet to be created, but from processes which are naturally given and which have always been in operation. What is new in it is the renunciation and rejection of any kind of politics and demagogy. New is that, instead of the working masses of people being relieved of social responsibility, they are being burdened with it. Further, that the work democrats have no political ambitions nor are allowed to develop any. Further, that it consciously develops formal democracy — which means merely the voting for ideological representatives without any further responsibility on the part of the voter — into genuine, factual and practical democracy on an international scale; a democracy which is borne, in progressive organic development, by the functions of love, work and knowledge.

Work-democracy adds a decisive piece of knowledge to the scope of ideas related to freedom. The masses of people who work and bear the burden of social existence on their shoulders neither are conscious of their social responsibility nor are they capable of assuming the responsibility for their own freedom. This is the result of the century-long suppression of rational thinking, the natural functions of love, and scientific comprehension of the living. Everything related to the emotional plague in social life can be traced back to this incapacity and lack of consciousness. It is work-democracy's contention that, by its very nature, politics is and has to be unscientific, i.e., that it is an expression of human helplessness, poverty, and suppression.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~

In the course of thousands of years of mechanical development, the mechanistic concept, from generation to generation, has anchored itself deeply in man's biological system. In so doing, it actually has altered human functioning in the sense of the machine-like. In the process of killing his genital function, man has become biologically rigid. He has armored himself against that which is natural and spontaneous within him, he has lost contact with the biological function of self-regulation and is filled with a strong fear of that which is alive and free.
~ Wilhelm Reich ~