We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.
How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.
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"Compromise, Hell!" Orion magazine (November/December 2004)Wendell Berry
» Wendell Berry - all quotes »
Jed Exodus, sounds like he's gonna go get changed in a phone box [posh heroic American voice] "WATCH OUT FOR JED EXODUS... I AM THE PISSER... I CAN FILL A HOLE IN NO TIME." That's where he's probably just gone now, out to prevent a crime. "HEY YOU, GET AWAY FROM THAT WOMAN AND STOP MUGGING HER." "All right mate, all right." "THERE YOU GO, MADAM, YOU CAN GO ON YOUR WAY, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS, PISS."
Lee Evans
Frances Wright was the first woman in this country who spoke on the equality of the sexes. She had indeed a hard task before her. The elements were entirely unprepared. She had to break up the time-hardened soil of conservatism, and her reward was sure — the same reward that is always bestowed upon those who are in the vanguard of any great movement. She was subjected to public odium, slander, and persecution. But these were not the only things she received. Oh, she had her reward — that reward of which no enemies could deprive her, which no slanders could make less precious — the eternal reward of knowing that she had done her duty.
Frances Wright
One of my guiding principles is don’t do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one’s work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be.
Seymour Cray
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
William Blake
Berry, Wendell
Berryman, Guy
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