Ammunition

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say an uncommon-place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles." ~ Jack Kerouac

"Few of us can surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that The State
has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be
internally denied." ~Arthur Miller

"Certainly nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn'tbelieve the world existed... The whole creation is one lunatic fringe... No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe."-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I am too high born to be propertied
To be a secondary at control
Or useful serving man and instrument
To any sovereign state in the world.
-William Shakespeare, King John, 5.2, 79-82

Know all men by these presents that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined.
-Henry Thoreau, Civil Disobedience.

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But, ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay,
(From Ages of Gaia by James Lovelock)

The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to i t, you will never know what justice is.
-Howard Zinn's rough paraphasing of a statement he once heard (20th Century, People's History, H. Zinn)

"Today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and color, lies a greater problem
which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to
live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their
fellowmen; that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal
and continuous."
--W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

"Caprice, independence and rebellion, which are opposed to the social order, are essential to the good
health of an ethnic group. We shall measure the good health of this group by the number of its delinquents.
Nothing is more immobilizing than the spirit of deference."
--Jean Dubuffet, French artist

People single me out for being an activist, but I always say
    that the impulse is inborn - it just needs to be nurtured. It
    starts when you're little, and you see some kids being unkind
    to another kid on the bus. Maybe you do something. Maybe you
    don't. But there was that little hint in your brain that
    something was wrong, that you weren't comfortable with the
    situation.

    Throughout your life, you have the opportunity to learn from
    that experience, to react to that little voice inside of you
    that says something has crossed your moral bottom line, to
    ignore what others are telling you to do and honor your
    impulse. The very core of being an activist is being true to
    yourself. - Susan Sarandon
http://mail.openprivacy.org/pipermail/think/2002-September/000047.html

"Remember that book I told you about the first sip is joy the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy."

Universal Invocation: Dr. Annie Besant, 1923   O Hidden Life, vibrant in every atom;   O Hidden Light, shining in every creature;   O Hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness;   May all who feel themselves as one with Thee,   Know they are therefore one with every other.

-- I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety 

to drop dead 

and I am waiting 

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe 

for anarchy

and I am waiting 

for the final withering away 

of all governments 

and I am perpetually awaiting 

a rebirth of wonder

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"We are not expendable. We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power. We are dancing flames committed to conquering darkness and to challenging those who threaten the planet and the magic and mystery of life."
-Rashida Bee, Bhopal chemical disaster survivor, receiving the Goldman Environmental Prize

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the worlds grief. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
- the Talmud

"Almost anybody can learn to think or believe to know, but not asingle human being can be taught to feel.  Why?  Because whenever youthink or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: butthe moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, nightand day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardestbattle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."excerpt from "A Poet's Advice" by e.e. cummings

 "I perceive for the first time that even in this beloved passage thesadness is merely the shadow of a cloud. This sadness is nothing butthe gentle music of passing things, and without it, whatever isbeautiful does not touch us. It is without pain. I take it with me onmy journey, and i feel contented as i step briskly farther up themountain path, the lake far below me, past a mill brook with chestnuttrees and a sleeping mill wheel, into the quiet blue day."hermann hesse--

Because, sometimes, merely refusing to stop cultivating anunquenchable lust for beauty and truth and orgasmic life is the most profound and important thing you can resolve to do. -mark morford