Dark Side of the Moon

So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it ‘fire.’ “If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant.

— Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Life is never free of contradictions

— Manmohan Singh

Sanjaya Baru recalled that it was difficult to convince Singh to take even a single day to relax. “We were going to Goa one day, to inaugurate the Birla Institute of Technology in Panaji,” Baru said. “We were to fly there in the morning, inaugurate the Birla Institute, and fly out in the evening back to Delhi. I said to him, sir, it’s a weekend. Why don’t we stay Saturday night, spend Sunday morning on the beach and come back Sunday evening. You don’t miss a working day. You know what he asked? ‘But what do I do there?’ Only Manmohan Singh could ask what he could do in Goa.

— Falling Man: Manmohan Singh at the centre of the storm

Here is better than home, eh, sir? I mean, at home if you kill someone they arrest you — here they’ll give you a gun and show you what to do, sir. I mean, I killed 15 of those buggers. Now, at home they’d hang me — here they’ll give me a fucking medal, sir!

— Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

Every gun that is made,
every warship launched,
every rocket fired,
signifies,
in the final sense,
a theft
from those who hunger
and are not fed,
those who are cold
and not clothed.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

(via ourtimes)

(via convoy)

1.17 Playing equipment including but not limited to the bases, pitcher’s plate, baseball, bats, uniforms, catcher’s mitts, first baseman’s gloves, infielders and outfielders gloves and protective helmets, as detailed in the provisions of this rule, shall not contain any undue commercialization of the product. Designations by the manufacturer on any such equipment must be in good taste as to the size and content of the manufacturer’s logo or the brand name of the item. The provisions of this Section 1.17 shall apply to professional leagues only.

— Official Baseball Rules: 1.0 Objectives of the Game

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.

— 

Ernest Hemingway.

By-Line, Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades by Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. p. 364.

When an ethnic restaurant opens up in a western country, that’s diversity. When a western restaurant opens up in a non-western country, that’s cultural imperialism.

— The Futile Quest for the Authentic Experience | Everything Everywhere: Around the World Travel Blog