#interesting quotes

[themuselesswriter]

Meet my parental inspiration

+ bonus

[saganssorcery]

It's Saturday and time for another Sagan Says; where I choose a random Carl Sagan book to see what wisdom he has for us this week:

As a side note I should mention that I am a vegan and dead against harming animals in any way shape or form.

[thebeautifuldreamer]

The Earth is littered with the ruins of empires that believed they were eternal.

-Camille Paglia.

[jimothy-g-brooks]

Fictional Quotes I Made Up

"I am fat, clumsy and I barely know how to hold this sword. I am shaking in my knees and right about to piss myself. I am the last person that should be here and yet here I am. 

 "And if I'm willing to stand up to you, bastard, who else do you think will?"

~

"I have a steel rod shoved through my sternum. I am still standing. 

"Who amongst you has it in them to fuck with me?"

~

"You want to know my story? Alright, well... One day, I became angry. 

"I have not stopped."

~

"You stabbed me. I'm trying to patch you up and you stabbed me. You're not a very good person, are you? 

"... Well, you didn't stab me well enough, so hold still, I'm not done stitching you up."

~

"And you killed her because she was being mean to you?" 

"No, I killed her because she and her gang had been murdering and robbing helpless schmucks and were right about to murder a child over a rare animal. 

"I took great pleasure in killing her because she was mean to me."

~

"I understood that my friends and I had stopped many Ends. We stopped these Ends before they could begin. But I also knew this World was marked with Ends that had to be stopped in the middle, Ends that just petered out and lost steam, and Ends that only ended right before it took everything else with it. And afterwards, the World had to pick itself back up and start over from the Beginning."

~

"You may ask, 'Why call yourself the Second Greatest Lover?' Because there was a contest, it was official, with judges. Any man can call himself the Greatest Lover, any man can pull out a disc of polished brass and call it gold. Only a real competitor can show you his silver."

~

"That was for Thomas Wilkins, the driver, who I couldn't save.

"That was for Alice Wilkins, his widow, who still had leftovers of their wedding cake. 

 "And this? This, I imagine, is going to be for a lot of other people, so we're going to be here for a while."

~

"I said they were incompetent, not that they weren't dangerous. They're probably going to kill us and still bungle whatever they're after. Probably the same thing we're after, so we'll be dead and it will bungled."

~

"Your doubts were wrong, but you were not wrong to doubt."

~

"I didn't ask. I already knew everything I needed to know about that place. Enough to get in, hurt everything I wanted to hurt, grab (rescue) everyone I wanted to grab, plus extra, and get back out."

~

"He didn't go mad with power. He went mad with worry." 

 "What was he worried about then?" 

"All that power, mostly."

~

"I trust very easily. Everyone who's ever betrayed me, I killed immediately. That means, everyone who is left is trustworthy."

~

"They looked into the Abyss and the Abyss stared back. When they refused to blink, the Abyss stabbed syringes into their eyes and injected crazy straight into their brain. 

 "You believed yourself strong enough of will and integrity to withstand the Abyss? Fuck you and go mad."

~

“I came to the maddening realization that everyone is an asshole, except me. And therefore, anything I do to them is morally justified because they are assholes and I am not.”

~

"Yes, I kill them. Quickly, painlessly, without making them wait in dread. What are you going to do? Put them in jail for the rest of their lives so they waste away slowly? Put them on death row so they spend all of their last drawn-out moment in terror? 

"I give mercy. One last mercy."

~

"It's all fun and games."

"Until someone gets hurt?"

"Well yes, I suppose after that the best part's over, isn't it?"

~

"I ain't gonna tell nobody how they can exit the world. 

"Unless they piss me off, then I tell them very directly how they can exit the world."

~

"So, what's that pillar of purple smokey looking light coming out of the ground there?" 

"That's a pillar of pure Darkness, blacker than the black night sky."

"Oh yeah, I guess it kinda feels like it's supposed to be dark and stuff but then, uh, why is it purple?"

"Everyone knows purple is more black than black."

"Oh yeah, that checks out."

~

"Unfortunately, because the building partially sits on a half-formed rift with a fairy tale like realm, the bathroom doesn't exist until somebody owns the place. Also, it keeps changing places. Upside is, as the owner, you'll always know where that place is."

~

"My older brother always stood up for me when creeps got too close to me. Most of them were weak and cowards, but my brother stepped up to one who wasn't and now he's dead and that creep did whatever he wanted. 

"So I got really good and I got really strong and one day I got the jump on that creep that killed my brother. As he laid dying, he told me, 'That's the thing, I got to do whatever I wanted because I was stronger and I could kill them if they tried to stop me. Now it's your turn to whatever you want.'

"And you know what? He was right. I'm gonna do whatever I want. And I wanna help people who ain't got no help, get people out of trouble who don't deserve it and stop sleazy creeps who think they can do whatever they want because no one will try and stop them. 

"And if anyone tries to stop me? I'll kill 'em."

~

"You might realize I have a somewhat morally complicated past. At some point, you see, I realized I was on the wrong side and that I was one of the bad guys."

"And that's when you defected and joined up with us?"

"Oh. Oh no no no. That's when I decided to double, triple and quadruple down and said 'Fuck it'. I was already mid-atrocity when I realized, 'Oh wait, this is an atrocity,' and purposefully, mindfully abandoned the moral code I thought all my comrades had instead of just doing it accidentally because I didn't know better.

"It took a while longer after that for me to realize I didn't have to play this game but by then I'd already 'Fucked it' down a pretty deep hole and was pretty fucked. But now I'm here helping you guys out! Think you can help me out?"

"Ah. Um.”

~

1 "I'm going to defeat you with the power of this idiot." 

2 "Hi there!" 

3 "Exactly how dumb is he?"

1 "Incredibly."

2 "It's nice to meet you, sir!"

3 "Oh god."

~

"I know you, one has become a monster because monstrous things have been done to you. Evil was poured into you and evil was all that could be poured out. 

"And I know you as well, one who was born a monster and never given a choice at all. Fate denied you the capacity to feel love or empathy at all. 

"It's okay, I understand. I know these things very well and you are by no means uniquely wicked. It's not your fault, you poor, lost creatures. It's no one's fault. 

"Ssshhh, don't struggle. I don't want it to hurt. Just close your eyes, it will be like going to sleep. I hope your dreams are sweet, even if everyone else says you deserve nightmares. I hope that, when you wake up, it's in a happier life with a more complete mind, that you'll smile and spread smiles around you.

"It's alright, it's alright. You are so full of hurt, so full of pain, but now it's all going stop. I absolve you of your pain and your hurt. I absolve you of your sin. I forgive you. Even if all the men of Earth and all the angels of Heaven do not, I forgive you.

"Go now and be at peace, lost children."

~

"Hear me, little angel. The world is empty and dark and cruel, there is no meaning to it, no morality, save that which we give it. Out there, there is nothing and you will find nothing. Do not wait for answers from gods in Heaven, you will find only silence. You want a god to worship, then look at me, look at your friends around you, look at the people on street, look into the mirror. The answers have always been within you or well within your reach or just a walk away. 

"Hear me, little godling. You, me, they, we are the fire that burn in the darkness. We are all there is, we are all that matters. If you want to believe in something, believe in the things you see and seek their exaltation. You want to worship, then take this, the world in front of you, and raise it far above all your imagined Heavens. You want immortality in Paradise, then leave your mark on a bettered world that will never be forgotten."

~

"Myself and a dozen others were stranded deep in the wilderness, far away from civilization. To survive, we all banded together, a sensible decision. 

"I got into a dispute with one man and he attacked me, so I killed him. It was self-defense, everyone agreed, somewhat nervously. Then, his lover tried to avenge him, so I killed her too.

"Now it seems I had defended myself two too many times. One man petitioned I be removed from the group and left to fend for myself in the wilderness, a death sentence.

"After two incidents, everyone was quite emotional and it seemed he was making good headway in his cause. My life was threatened, so I killed him as well and made it clear I would not let myself be left to die.

"Someone else decided I was too great a threat to their safety and tried to kill me in my sleep. I killed them. The remaining survivors were now well and truly emotional, but I felt my actions had been quite reasonable.

"They disagreed, they tried to leave me on my own as I slept and find a new shelter without me. Again, this was tantamount to killing me, so I moved to defend myself.

"I tracked them down and I killed two more. I made it clear by this point to all that were left that I would allow them to survive if they allowed me to survive. A very fair and equal trade, I would think. 

"Why am I the bad guy?"

[iwastheair]

one time someone said to me:

"Love is between a man and a woman. Two women or two men could love each other but it's not as strong as a man and a woman because they're so different so to overcome those differences and love each other is a much greater achievement and makes that emotional bond so much stronger. But I guess this world is so fucked up God doesn't care who loves who anymore because finding love is so difficult in this world." -A real person who said this to me, oh I should also mention this was right after they called me a homophobic slur because "there's nothing wrong with that word, I don't know why you people get so offended by it"

I just- what. I just needed to share because wtf

[everwalldigan]

Bruce: *waking up in a hospital that he drove himself to after having a heart attack and telling absolutely nobody* hey…

The entirety of the batclan looking over him with Dick in the centre, an absolute terrifying grin on his face:

Dick: hello Bruce, nice evening isn’t it? Got something to share with us?

Edit: the fic is now out on ao3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/57780508

[notherpuppet]

“Just because you see a smile, don’t think you know what’s going on underneath.”

[wocado]

It's the possibility of having a dream come true ~ @paulocoelho

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true

life, life quotes, dreams, dreams quotes, Paulo Coelho, Paulo Coelho quotes, dream come true, dream come true quotes, interesting, interesting quotes #PICTUREQUOTES, #QUOTES

[ale-arro]

been going a little bit insane about this sentence from Ace by Angela Chen for the past week

[percabethconvos]

Grover: So I'm curious, what's Annabeth's 'love language'?

Percy:...

Percy: Asking

Grover: Asking?

Percy: Yeah. You should've seen how happy she got the other day when I asked her about the construction of the Pantheon's dome

[l-just-want-to-see]

pjo/hoo/toa + the cycle

The Lightning Thief / Growing Sideways, Noah Kahan / Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, Ilya Repin + Saturn Devouring His Son, Goya + Saturn, Rubens / The Blood of Olympus / The Family Jewels, MARINA / The Last Olympian / The Sea of Monsters / The Family Jewels / Orestes Pursued by the Furies, Bouguereau / The Hidden Oracle / Apollo and Marsyas, Manfredi / In The Blood, John Mayer / The Sea of Monsters / The Combat of Ares and Athena, Jacques Louis David / The Family Jewels / Mark of Athena / The Combat of Ares and Athena / The Lightning Thief / Family Line, Conan Gray / Cronos and Rhea, Schinkel / The Lightning Thief / The Blood of Olympus / In The Blood / The Last Olympian / Chronos and His Child, Romanelli / Desireé Dellagiacomo / The Lightning Thief / Family Line / The Fallen Angel, Alexandre Cabanel + The Last Day of Pompeii, Bryullov / The Blood of Olympus / The Outcast, Botticelli / Glass, Irony and God, Anna Carson / House of Hades / Family Line / The Last Olympian / The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper + Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Roman School + Minerva and Arachne, Houasse + Venus Induces Helen to Fall in Love with Paris, Kauffmann / The Last Olympian / Hadestown / The Lightning Thief / apple, Charli xcx / The Last Olympian / I Would Leave Me If I Could, Halsey / The Sea of Monsters / ? / LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK, Lavery and Corrigan / The Last Olympian / Eat Your Young, Hozier / The Last Olympian / Orpheus and the Bacchantes, Lazzarini / The Blood of Olympus / Susan Smith, wych elm / Orpheus and the Bacchantes / The Burning Maze / ? / The Tyrant’s Tomb / Perseus Freeing Andromeda, Veronese / Abduction of Psyche, Bouguereau + Bacchus and Ariadne, Van Loo / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero

[saganssorcery]

It's Saturday and time for another Sagan Says; where I choose a random Carl Sagan book to see what wisdom he has for us this week:

[communistkenobi]

"Sex" is commonly used to refer to a person's status as a man or woman based on biological factors. Although sex reflects a person's biology, as opposed to gender, which is generally considered to be socially constructed, the biological aspect of the body that determines a person's sex has not been legally or medically resolved. Traditionally, a person's legal sex is established by the sex that the birth attendant places on the birth certificate. Thus, for infants born with unambiguous external genitalia, the external genitalia typically control the sex determination. If the genitalia appear ambiguous, sex is assigned, in part, based on sex-role stereotypes. The presence of an "adequate" penis in an XY infant leads to the label male, while the absence of an "adequate" penis leads to the label female. A genetic (XY) male with an "inadequate" penis (one that physicians believe will be incapable of penetrating a female's vagina when the child reaches adulthood) is "turned into" a female even if it means destroying his reproductive capacity. A genetic (XX) female who may be capable of reproducing, however, is generally assigned the female sex to preserve her reproductive capability, regardless of the appearance of her external genitalia. If her phallus is considered to be too large to meet the guidelines for a typical clitoris, it is surgically reduced, even if it means that her capacity for satisfactory sex may be reduced or destroyed. In other words, men are defined based on their ability to penetrate females, and females are defined based on theis ability to procreate. Sex, therefore, can be viewed as a social construct rather than a biological fact.

— The Road Less Traveled: The Problem with Binary Sex Categories by Julie A Greenberg in Transgender Rights (2006)

interesting to note that 1) the introduction of chromosomal information doesn’t actually provide more “biologically accurate” precision in sex assignment, only a more complex set of administrative and medical instructions on the procedures of assignment, 2) the only concern in sex assignment is maintaining the distinction that “females make babies” and “males penetrate females to induce pregnancy.”

This is why the idea that “sex is biological” or that we can just drill down to find the sex atom of the human body, be that chromosomes or gametes or whatever else, is premised on the notion that sex assignment is simply a record of a self-evident reality, not the construction of the category of sex as the mythological foundation of cis-heterosexual reproduction

[evermoreismychild]

regulus: it’s like we finish each other’s—

james: …homework

regulus: ???

james, in tears, sliding his potions work over to reg: please

[everwalldigan]

Dick: Hey B, how many frogs do you think you’d have to find in the batcave before you start getting suspicious that someone is putting them there?

Bruce: zero.

Dick: that doesn’t even make sense, what-

Bruce: I will know of their scheme before it even happens and catch them in the act before they even plant the first one.

Dick: *scoffs* ok then hypothetically it’s someone using magic to—

Bruce: no metas allowed in Gotham

Dick: well ok they don’t have to be in Gotham to make things appear h-

Bruce: No. Metas. In. Gotham.

Dick:*throws his hands up in rage* ugh fine! My fault for wanting to make fucking conversation. Jesus Christ you’re insufferable *stomps away, muttering angrily to himself*

Bruce: *watches him go with a small shit-eating grin, whispering* the actual answer is three

[rb19]

2006, Genk Karting Circuit