"The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."

 "This is ain't summer of love

This is the summer of

Racist running, cities burning

Children show you what they're learning

Whole world finally fade away

Move like generation A

 

I can't wait

I can't wait

Too little, too late"

"Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it."

"Amor líquido é um amor até segundo aviso, o amor a partir do padrão dos bens de consumo: mantenha-o enquanto ele te trouxer satisfação, e o substitua por outros que prometem ainda mais satisfação. É o amor com um espectro de eliminação imediata e, assim, também de ansiedade permanente, pairando acima dele. Na sua forma “líquida”, o amor tenta substituir a qualidade por quantidade — mas isso nunca pode ser feito, como seus praticantes mais cedo ou mais tarde acabam percebendo."

 "A modernidade líquida em que vivemos traz consigo uma misteriosa fragilidade dos laços humanos - um amor líquido. A segurança inspirada por essa condição estimula desejos conflitantes de estreitar esses laços e ao mesmo tempo mantê-los frouxos;"

"Of all our feelings the only one which really doesn't belong to us is hope. Hope belongs to life, it's life itself defending itself. Etcetera.”

 “We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe."

"I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt

(...)

All in all is all we are"

 "The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves."

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path."

"The foolish man conceives the idea of 'self.' The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of 'self;' thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain."

 "The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all."

 "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

 "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."

 "O século XXI me dará razão, por abandonar na linguagem & na ação a civilização cristã oriental & ocidental com sua tecnologia de extermínio & ferro velho, seus computadores de controle, sua moral, seus poetas babosos, seu câncer que-ninguém-descobre-a-causa, seus foguetes nucleares caralhudos, sua explosão demográfica, seus legumes envenenados, seu sindicato policial do crime, seus ministros gangsters, seus gangsters ministros, seus partidos de esquerda-fascistas, suas mulheres navi-escola, suas fardas vitoriosas, seus cassetes eletrônicos, sua gripe espanhola, sua ordem unida, sua epidemia suicida, seus literatos sedentários, seus leões-de-chácara da cultura, seus pró-Cuba, seus anti-Cuba, seus capachos do PC, seus bidês da direita, seus cérebros de água-choca, suas mumunhas sempiternas, suas xícaras de chá, seus manuais de estéticas, sua aldeia global, seu rebanho-que-saca, suas gaiolas, seu jardinzinhos com vidro fumê, seus sonhos paralíticos de televisão, suas cocotas, seus rios cheio de sardinha, suas preces, suas panquecas recheadas com desgosto, suas últimas esperanças, suas tripas, seu luar de agosto, seus chatos, suas cidades embalsamadas, sua tristeza, seus cretinos sorridentes, sua lepra, sua jaula, sua estrictina, seus mares de lama, seus mananciais de desespero."

 “Mas também seria por vezes tomada de um êxtase de prazer puro e legítimo que ela mal podia adivinhar. Aliás já estava adivinhando porque se sentiu sorrindo e também sentiu uma espécie de pudor que se tem diante do que é grande demais. Ser-se o que se é era grande demais e incontrolável. Lóri tinha uma espécie de receio de ir longe demais. Sempre se retinha um pouco como se retivesse as rédeas de um cavalo que poderia galopar e levá-la Deus sabe aonde. Ela se guardava. Por que e para qué? Para o que estava ela se poupando? Era um certo medo de sua capacidade, pequena ou grande. Talvez se contivesse por medo de não saber os limites de uma pessoa”

“Temos sorrido em público do que não sorriríamos quando ficássemos sozinhos. Temos chamado de fraqueza a nossa candura. Temo-nos temido um ao outro, acima de tudo. E a tudo isso consideramos a vitória nossa de cada dia. Mas eu escapei disso, Lóri, escapei com a ferocidade com que se escapa da peste, Lóri e esperarei até você também estar mais pronta”

 "O mistério gera curiosidade e a curiosidade é a base do desejo humano para compreender."

"I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening."

"Like a cat
Tied to a stick
That's driven into
Frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)"

" Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs."

 “Why must one talk? Often one shouldn't talk, but live in silence. The more one talks, the less the words mean."

"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”

"For some reason, we were going down the wrong path and Mother Nature just said, Enough already, we’ve got to stop everything, This is going to last long enough to lead to some kind of new way of thinking.”

"I think it’s going to be much more spiritual and much kinder and it’s going to bring us all closer together in a really strong and beautiful way. It’s going to be a different world on the other side and it’s going to be a much more intelligent world."

Editar

“War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength"

"Science is not Democratic or Republican, progressive or conservative. Science is science. There are no 'alternative facts, A modern society cannot survive unless decisions are made on evidence-based research."

"I'm dead, Anna. No, no, I'm not dead. No, that's wrong. Too melodramatic. I'm not dead at all. But I live without self-respect. I know it sounds silly - pretentious - since almost all people are forced to live without self-worth. Humiliated to the core, stifled and spat upon. They just live. They know nothing more. They know no alternative. Even if they did, they would never reach for it. You understand? Can you be sick from humiliation? Is it a disease we're all infected by and we have to live with? We talk so much about freedom, Anna. Isn't freedom a terrible poison for the humiliated... or is the word "freedom" only a drug the humiliated use in order to endure. I can't live with this. I've given up. Sometimes it's almost unbearable. The days drag by. I feel like I'm choking on the food I swallow, the crap I get rid of, the words I say. The light - the daylight which comes every morning and yells at me to get up. Or the sleep which always brings dreams, chasing me back and forth. Or just the darkness rattling with ghosts and memories. Has it occurred to you, Anna, that the worse off people are, the less they complain? Eventually they're silent... even though they're living creatures with nerves, eyes and hands. Massive armies of both victims and executioners. The light which rises and sinks heavily. The cold approaches. Darkness. The heat. The smell. And everyone is silent. We can never leave this place. I don't believe in escape. It's too late. Everything's too late."

"Human beings are human beings whether they speak or not."

"Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say 'no.' But saying 'yes' begins things. Saying 'yes' is how things grow."

"I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light."

"Estamos absolutamente emocionados e extasiados por nossos colegas terem reconhecido a urgência deste filme, e honrados por estarmos na companhia de documentários tão importantes. Numa época em que a extrema direita está se espalhando como uma epidemia, esperamos que esse filme possa nos ajudar a entender como é crucial proteger nossas democracias"

"It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."

"Yet I also suspected that what I was seeing was but a part of the truth and perhaps not even the most important part; beneath these faces, these clothes, accents, rudenesses, was power and sorrow, both unadmitted, unrealized, the power of inventors, the sorrow of the disconnected."

"I woke up with a feeling I just could not take
I woke up with a feeling I just could not take
I woke up with a feeling I just could not take
I woke up with a (not take)"

(...)
Swallowed up
Swallowed up by the city
By the city, by the city
Humans the size of rats
Opportunity cracks, opportunity stutters
It only takes a minute
And it takes it, and it takes it
And it takes it, and it takes it"

"A fog of uncertainty soon settles over every account, “which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening,” and therefore “makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs."

"Como quem, vindo de países distantes fora de si,
chega finalmente aonde sempre esteve
e encontra tudo no seu lugar,
o passado no passado, o presente no presente,
assim chega o viajante à tardia idade
em que se confundem ele e o caminho."

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

"Mas nessa conversa imaginária com os meus netos imaginários não perderei muito tempo com a “caça às bruxas” das primeiras décadas do século 21. Também falarei do filme —uma comédia romântica, aparentemente ligeira, com atores que, depois da rodagem, também se afastaram de Woody Allen com náusea. Exatamente como os seus antepassados se afastavam dos comunistas, reais ou imaginários."

"The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'"

“If one's different, one's bound to be lonely.”

"Being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right."

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."

"Existem nas recordações de todo o homem coisas que ele só revela aos seus amigos. Há outras que não revela mesmo aos amigos, mas apenas a si próprio, e assim mesmo em segredo. Mas também há, finalmente, coisas que o homem tem medo de desvendar até a si próprio, e, em cada homem honesto, acumula-se um número bastante considerável de coisas no gênero." 

"This means, in the face of mounting pressure, news organizations must hold fast to the values of great journalism — fairness, accuracy, independence — while opening ourselves so the public can better understand our work and its role in society. We need to keep chasing the stories that matter, regardless of whether they’re trending on Twitter. We cannot allow ourselves to be baited or applauded into becoming anyone’s opposition or cheerleader. Our loyalty must be to facts, not to any party or any leader, and we must continue to follow the truth wherever it leads, without fear or favor.

But the responsibility to stand up for the free press extends beyond news organizations. Business, nonprofit and academic communities, all of which rely on the free and reliable flow of news and information, have a responsibility to push back on this campaign, too. That is particularly true of tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple. Their track record of standing up to governments abroad is spotty at best; they’ve too often turned a blind eye to disinformation and, at times, permitted the suppression of real journalism."

 "Everything will be forgotten and nothing will be redressed."

"Illiteracy does not impede the practice of democracy, anti-intellectualism does."

"Listen, I’m not an intellectual—Fascism has no need of that. What is wanted is the deed. Theory derives from action. What our corporate state demands from us is comprehension of the social forces—of history."

"Vivemos esse período como sonâmbulos, sem saber que íamos em direção ao desastre. Continuamos como sonâmbulos e estamos indo rumo ao desastre, em condições diferentes. O que é certo é o desastre ecológico, e o desastre dos fanatismos.

A menos que as pessoas tomem consciência da comunidade de destino dos humanos sobre a Terra, as pessoas se fecharão em suas identidades religiosas, étnicas etc. Vivemos um período obscuro da história, a única consolação é que esses períodos obscuros não são eternos."

"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life." 

"Ele é a figura ideal, inclusive ele tem a cara da elite brasileira, como todas as elites dos países que foram colonizados, foram criadas na base do previlégio.. não tem escândalo que derrube ele neste sentido.. porque a elite brasileira é racista. é escravista... é indiferente aos sofrimentos da população.. temos um presidente que é a cara da elite dominante...."

 "Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people"

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

"Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs."

"Being in darkness and confusion is interesting to me. But behind it you can rise out of that and see things the way the really are. That there is some sort of truth to the whole thing, if you could just get to that point where you could see it, and live it, and feel it ... I think it is a long, long, way off. In the meantime there's suffering and darkness and confusion and absurdities, and it's people kind of going in circles. It's fantastic. It's like a strange carnival: it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of pain."

"Is it easy to keep so quiet?
Everybody loves a quiet child
Underwater you're almost free
If you wanna be alone, come with me
Is it easy to live inside yourself?"

"Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd."

"If there is something occurring that is so bad that it could be considered a crime against humanity, it has to be transmitted with anguish, with pain, and create an impact in people - upset them, shake them up, wake them out of their everyday routine."

“For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war."

 "Lóri, disse Ulisses, e de repente pareceu grave embora falasse tranquilo, Lóri: uma das coisas que aprendi é que se deve viver apesar de. Apesar de, se deve comer. Apesar de, se deve amar. Apesar de, se deve morrer. Inclusive muitas vezes o próprio apesar de que nos empurra para a frente. Foi o apesar de que me deu uma angústia que insatisfeita foi a criadora de minha própria vida. Foi apesar de que parei na rua e fiquei olhando para você enquanto você esperava um táxi. E desde logo desejando você, esse teu corpo que nem sequer é bonito, mas é o corpo que eu quero. Mas quero inteira, com alma também. Por isso, não faz mal que você não venha, esperarei quanto tempo for preciso."

"A mais premente necessidade de um ser humano era tornar-se um humano."

"(...) Mas engana-se os que acreditam que a extinção do MinC e a redução do financiamento à cultura silenciarão vozes dissonantes, a crítica e o espírito libertário dos artistas. Na adversidade, a cultura brasileira se fortalecerá e resistirá à barbárie."

"It’s like writing, uh, your own obituary. I suppose to look back at it and say, you know, I cared enough to go to these places and write, in some way, something that would make someone else care as much about it as I did at the time. Part of it is you’re never going to get to where you’re going if you acknowledge fear. I think fear comes later, when it’s all over."

"No one survives alone."

"The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference."

"Liberty is about our rights to question everything."

“The relations individuals enter into with other individuals nowadays have been described as ‘pure’ – meaning ‘no strings attached’, no unconditional obligations assumed and so no predetermination, and therefore no mortgaging, of the future. The sole foundation and only reason for the relationship to continue is, it has been said, the amount of mutual satisfaction drawn from it.” 

"(...) One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid."

“What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary. It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.”

"To write the truth as I see it; to defend the weak against the strong; to fight for justice; and to seek, as best I can to bring healing perspectives to bear on their terrible hates and fears of mankind, in the hope of someday bringing about one world, in which men[and women] will enjoy the differences of the human garden instead of killing each other over them."

"Amor líquido é um amor “até segundo aviso”, o amor a partir do padrão dos bens de consumo: mantenha-os enquanto eles te trouxerem satisfação e os substitua por outros que prometem ainda mais satisfação. O amor com um espectro de eliminação imediata e, assim, também de ansiedade permanente, pairando acima dele. Na sua forma “líquida”, o amor tenta substituir a qualidade por quantidade — mas isso nunca pode ser feito, como seus praticantes mais cedo ou mais tarde acabam percebendo. É bom lembrar que o amor não é um “objeto encontrado”, mas um produto de um longo e muitas vezes difícil esforço e de boa vontade."

"The present age is one of understanding, of reflection, devoid of passion, an age which flies into enthusiasm for a moment only to decline back into indolence."

"Folks, I'm telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean-
so get yourself
a little loving
in between."

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." 

"Art is not a toy, a fashion statement, a decoration. Art is inherently disruptive. Art is dangerous. It can explode in your face. Not that art can be a crime; art must be a crime."

"I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are fragments of endless possibilities."

"The real people went away
But I'll find a better way, someday
Leaving only me and my dreams"

"Reality is perhaps not at all what I imagine. Perhaps it doesn't exist, in fact. Perhaps it only exists as a longing."

"Quando ambição se confronta com mediocridade, nasce o populismo."

"Arranca metade do meu corpo, do meu coração, dos meus sonhos. 
Tira um pedaço de mim, qualquer coisa que me desfaça. 
Me recria, porque eu não suporto mais pertencer a tudo, mas não caber em lugar algum."

"I don't know how to be myself. It's like I'm permanently outside myself. Like, like you could push your hands straight through me if you wanted to. And I can see the type of man I want to beversus the type of man I actually am and I know that I'm doing it but I'm incapable of what needs to be done."

"Every second that passes is like a door that opens to allow in what has not yet happened, what we call the future, but, to challenge the contradictory nature of what we have just said, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the future is just an immense void, that the future is just the time on which the eternal present feeds."

"Every sort of contradiction can be found in me, depending upon some twist or attribute: timid, insolent; chaste, lecherous; talkative, taciturn; tough, sickly; clever, dull; drooding, affable; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant; generous, miserly and then prodigal. I can see something of all that in myself, depending on how I gyrate; and anyone who studies himself attentively finds in himself and in this very judgment this whirring about and this discordancy. There is nothing I can say about myself as a whole, simply and completely, without intermingling and admixture."

"I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again?"

"Tudo é estranho  a vida ,a humanidade, tudo é carregado arrastado pela água, até ir pro fundo.Há um sonho que tenho estou sentada no alto de uma coluna sem ver nenhuma possibilidade de descer, tenho vertigem e sinto a necessidade de sair mas falta-me coragem."

"(...) O tempo é escasso 
– mãos à obra!
Primeiro é preciso transformar a vida,
para cantá-la em seguida.
Os tempos
estão duros para o artista.
Mas dizei-me, anêmicos e anões,
os grandes, 
  onde, em que ocasiões,
escolheram uma estrada batida ?
Para o júbilo o planeta está imaturo,
é preciso arrancar alegria ao futuro.
Nesta vida, 
morrer não é difícil,
difícil é a vida e seu ofício."    dize

“The absence of love is the most abject pain”

"Your memory is slowly penetrated by oblivion."

"You were alone and you wanted to burn the bridges between you and the world."

"You detach yourself from everything. You are invisible, limpid, transparent."

"We are like the dreamer who dreams, and then lives inside the dream. But who is the dreamer?"

"Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs."

"Well, we're grasping for two things at once. Partly for communion with others - that's the deepest instinct in us. And partly, we're seeking security. By constant communion with others we hope we shall be able to accept the horrible fact of our total solitude."

“I'll tell you something banal.We're emotional illiterates.And not only you and I-practically everybody,that's the depressing thing.We're taught everything about the body and about agriculture in Madagascar and about the square root of pi, or whatever the hell it's called,but not a word about the soul.We're abysmally ignorant,about both ourselves and others.There's a lot of loose talk nowadays to the effect that children should be brought up to know all about brotherhood and understanding and coexistence and equality and everything else that's all the rage just now.But it doesn't dawn on anyone that we must first learn something about ourselves and our own feelings."

"The cliche is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down. To me, life is going up until you are burned by flames"

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

"Drift all you like from ocean to ocean
Search the whole world
But drunken confessions and hijacked affairs
Will just make you more alone"

"The biological function of art is disorientation"

"Substitution . . . the infinite cannot be made into matter, but it is possible to create an illusion of the infinite: the image."

"Picture prosthetics in Afghanistan
Picture a courthouse with no fucking laws
Picture a cathouse with no fucking whores
Picture a shithouse with no fucking drains
Picture a leader with no fucking brains
No fucking brains, no fucking brains

(...)

Follow me down to a place by the river
Sold for my kidneys, sold for my liver
Why so weedy, so fucking needy
There's no such thing as being too greedy"

"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others."