Ernesto Cardenal Quotes
I speak of the current civilization and I consider her not as a symbol but as victim-victim, really, of the commercialization, of the falsification of this real world. That is my theme.
Quotes to Explore
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The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American.
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History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.
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It's not blaming the victim. It's not anybody's fault. They just did something that didn't work, that's all.
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The most important issue for the killer is the ability to get a victim easily and successfully.
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I consider that there are different degrees of civilization and there are many different ways of expressing it. But one is civilized or is not.
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A slight daily unconscious luxury is hardly ever wanting to the dwellers in civilization; like the gentle air of a genial climate, it is a perpetual minute enjoyment.
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The mere smell of cooking can evoke a whole civilization.
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The best test of the quality of a civilization is the quality of its leisure.
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It's funny how in that moment I see things clearly. Am I beaten down? Yes. Have I allowed myself to become a victim? Somewhat. Am I afraid? Always. Does some part of me still long to fly away from this place? Absolutely. But I can't leave. Sam and I have built a life for Joy. It isn't perfect, but it's a life. My family's happiness means more to me that starting over again.
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I hope that I will be the last victim in China's long record of treating words as crimes.
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The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place.
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You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, and wipe it clean of life - but if you desire to defend it, protect it,and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman Legions did - by putting your soldiers in the mud.
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Civilization today reminds me of an ape with a blowtorch playing in a room full of dynamite. It looks like the monkeys are about to operate the zoo, and the inmates are taking over the asylum.
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... it is a matter of civilizing everyone or not being civilized at all: the decay has always come from a partial civilization.
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... I cannot think a civilization worth having that does not encourage and enable its subjects to spend something, not extorted by governments but freely given to keep wretchedness at least from the streets they walk through day by day.
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The surest way of making a dupe is to let your victim suppose you are his.
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If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.
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The Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations have perished; Hammurabi, Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar are empty names; yet Babylonian mathematics is still interesting, and the Babylonian scale of 60 is still used in Astronomy.
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We must be before we can do, and we can do only to the extent which we are, and what we are depends upon what we think.
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When it comes to immigration, I have actually put more money, under my administration, into border security than any other administration previously. We've got more security resources at the border - more National Guard, more border guards, you name it - than the previous administration. So we've ramped up significantly the issue of border security.
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Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.
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One gets, sensitive about losing mornings after getting a little used to them with living in a country. Each one of these endlessly varied daybreaks is an opera but once performed.
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I speak of the current civilization and I consider her not as a symbol but as victim-victim, really, of the commercialization, of the falsification of this real world. That is my theme.
