"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character."

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Source : Joseph Heller (1999). “Catch-22: A Novel”, p.336, Simon and Schuster

Joseph Heller

#Character Quotes #Humility Quotes #Justice Quotes

“Genes do make a contribution to the IQ score - but a flower needs soil. The environment for poor people is so overwhelmingly powerful, it washes out the genetic effect. There is a genetic contribution to IQ, but you can't detect it when you're living in a deprived environment.”

Source : Source: www.pbs.org
“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.”

Source : Benjamin Britten (2011). “Letters from a Life Vol 1: 1923-39: Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten”, Faber & Faber
“Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water.”
“No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”
“The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.”
“You may think of me as an object of desire and I'm going to tell you that I can be in front of you naked and not be erotic.”

Source : "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
“Modern schools and universities push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, and chilling competitiveness. These character traits are the essence of the twisted personality-type of modern industrialism. They are precisely the character traits needed to maintain a social system that is utterly out of touch with nature, sexuality and real human needs.”

Source : Arthur Evans (1978). “Witchcraft and the Gay counterculture: a radical view of Western civilization and some of the people it has tried to destroy”, Bookpeople
“If I had to be anything," he told her, "I'd probably be a socialist, but I don't want to be anything.”

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