Category Archives: READING MATTER

Books I read & recommend

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WHAT IS THIS WORLD?

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“What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment.  You judge of the continuous existence of the world, as an ephemeral insect might judge of yours. The world is eternal for you, as you are eternal to the being that lives but for one instant. Yet the insect is the more reasonable of the two. For what a prodigious succession of ephemeral generations attests your eternity! What an immeasurable tradition! Yet shall we all pass away, without the possibility of assigning either the real extension that we filled in space, or the precise time that we shall have endured. Time, matter, space—all, it may be, are no more than a point.”

Denis Diderot (5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784), Lettre sur les aveugles [Letter on the Blind] (1749)

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GAMES OF THRONES LESSON UNLEARNED

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The Game of Thrones teaches a lesson observed repeatedly throughout the history of the physical universe, but is rarely learned — violence, motivated by psychotic lust for conquest and revenge, is the reason human civilizations do not endure. Psychopaths are not aware of immortal spiritual beings. They think everything, including themselves, is a physical object. They think power and possession are the path to personal immortality. There are many examples, such as the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (259 BCE-210 BCE). Avoid those who desire to rule your possessions, including your body. Know who you really are. Be the indestructible, eternal spirit that is you.

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MARK TWAIN: COMMENTS ON THE HUMAN RACE

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Are the comments made about the human race more than 100 years ago by Mark Twain intended to be humorous, sarcastic or serious?

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)  was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called “The Great American Novel“.

“Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn’t something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity; He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly–a lark which must have cost him a regret or two when He came to think it over & observe effects.” – Letter to William Dean Howells, 25 January 1900

“As to the human race. There are many pretty and winning things about the human race. It is perhaps the poorest of all the inventions of all the gods but it has never suspected it once. There is nothing prettier than its naive and complacent appreciation of itself. It comes out frankly and proclaims without bashfulness or any sign of a blush that it is the noblest work of God. It has had a billion opportunities to know better, but all signs fail with this ass. I could say harsh things about it but I cannot bring myself to do it–it is like hitting a child.” — Autobiographical dictation, 25 June 1906

“We all belong to the nasty stinking little human race, & of course it is not nice for God’s beloved vermin to scoff at each other… Oh, we are a nasty little lot–& to think there are people who would like to save us & continue us. It won’t happen if I have any influence.” — Letter to William Dean Howells, 2 April 1899

 “Can any plausible excuse be furnished for the crime of creating the human race?” — from The New York Times, “Hartford Museum Purchases Barrels Full of Twain’s Old Books,” July 31, 1997