A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.
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| — | George R. R. Martin. (via ohinsomnia) |
Oh, come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean am I tough, organized? I can’t even balance my checkbook. Look Reese, I didn’t ask for this honor and I don’t WANT IT, ANY OF IT!
- Sarah Connor, Terminator
Kim Jong-un demands the best for North Korean theme park guests
No free rides: North Korean president Kim Jong-un issued a rare public condemnation today of—wait for it—a North Korean amusement park. According to a South Korean report, Lil’ Kim visited the Mangyongdae Funfair recently, and was none too pleased with its upkeep. He called a path in front of a Viking ride “pathetic” and, upon spotting errant weeds growing in between pavement blocks, bent down and plucked them out himself (with “an irritated look” on his face, no less). He also showed his philosophical side, citing a proverb (“The darkest place is under the candlestick”) to illustrate the park’s poor condition. Analysts suspect it’s an attempt to portray Kim as a strong leader who cares for the good of his people, and we are 100% positive that this will work. (Photo: AP) source
Saying ‘what kind of an idiot doesn’t know about the Yellowstone supervolcano’ is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.
Knowledge once gained casts a light beyond its own immediate boundaries.
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| — | John Tyndall (via expose-the-light) |
A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work and devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.
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| — | Albert Camus, The Plague (via philphys) |
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
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There is something about holding an organized pile of wood pulp and dried ink that gives the reader a shared stake in the author’s experience, some small part-ownership of a piece of information. “This is mine, and although the words in it are not, the experience is purely personal.” Where will this take us with e-books? I am a huge fan of their accessibility and their rich creative potential, but will the magic persist? (via Brain Pickings) |
