Poets should learn with their eyes, the forms of leaves.
They should know how to make people laugh when all are together.
They should go to see what people are really like.
They should know about oceans and mountains in themselves,
and the sun and the moon and the stars.
Their minds should enter into the seasons.
They should go among many people in many places,
and learn their languages.
—Kshemendra, 11th century
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.
—Walt Whitman
"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt.
He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely
suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at
command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome
nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how
despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so
base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but
an act of murder.”
—Albert Einstein
“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic.
He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus
more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad
citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”
—H.L. Mencken
“All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to
the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.”
—François Fénelon
"Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy
of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded."
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
—Samuel Johnson
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind
don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
I ♥! Dr. Seuss
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
—Ian Maclaren
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