Bully

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense — not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay. —Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.

Bully

“I do not wish to defend myself, I do not wish to be defended. I belong completely to the social responsibility for all my actions. I accept it completely and without reservations. I wished to oppose the invader from Versailles with a barrier of flames. I had no accomplices in this action. I acted on my own initiative. I am told that I am an accomplice of the Commune. Certainly, yes, since the Commune wanted more than anything else the social revolution, and since the social revolution is the dearest of my desires . . . the Commune, which by the way had nothing to do with murders and arson… since it seems that any heart which beats for freedom has the right only to a lump of lead, I too claim my share. If you let me live, I shall never stop crying for revenge and l shall avenge my brothers. I have finished. If you are not cowards, kill me!”

Louise Michel

Bully

To the Commission of Pardons

Auberive prison, November 28, 1872, 7 a.m

Murderers, can you hear time’s bell?
In any event, I’m content with this.
We suffered but we saved our cause.
So many cynically accumulated crimes, coldly done, so much
cowardice and inability widely expose you.
Bravo, Gentlemen! The white orgy is complete!
Can you take your good name away from here, no!
In history you will always be the commission for the “coup de grâce,” executioner’s valet!
Gentlemen, you must remember that we will be afraid, and we will laugh at you because you are such horrible, grotesque people.

Louise Michel

Luck

“…closer to the secrets of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not play at dice”
Albert Einstein
“God may not play at dice, but She certainly knows how to count cards.”
Hanna Sharifi

Bully

“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm.
When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get
wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such
things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still
get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you
will not be perplexed, though you still get the same
soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”
–Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Tao

“Not that complete understanding is possible, the point is to get as near to it as we can, to know all that can be known, in order to stand, if only for a moment, at the edge of what can not.” Alan Judd 1991

Justice

“There will be justice,” said Brutha. “If there is no justice, there is nothing.”
-Terry Pratchett in Small Gods, page 322

The Law

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
CHARLES DICKENS, Oliver Twist, chapter 51.

Bully

“Such a one (the narcissist – SV) is encased, is he not, in an armour – such an armour! The armour of the crusaders was nothing to it – an armour of arrogance, of pride, of complete self-esteem. This armour, it is in some ways a protection, the arrows, the everyday arrows of life glance off it. But there is this danger; Sometimes a man in armour might not even know he was being attacked. He will be slow to see, slow to hear – slower still to feel.”

“Dead Man’s Mirror” by Agatha Christie in “Hercule Poirot – The Complete Short Stories”, Great Britain, HarperCollins Publishers, 1999

Faith

Books don’t do anything. Humans do things, and they write books and
use books and misuse books. Some people read sacred books and are
inspired to be more charitable and kind. Others read the same books and
find justification for their hatred and fear.   –Phil Goldberg