Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[Stitchawl]

"Man, we don't go somewhere. Goin' somewhere is for squares. We just go."

Marlon Brando in "The Wild One"

Stitchawl

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

"Man, we don't go somewhere. Goin' somewhere is for squares. We just go."

Marlon Brando in "The Wild One"

Stitchawl

[WT Sharpe]

.....It was said that one day a pagan had approached Hillel and promised to convert to Judaism if he could summarize the entire Torah while he stood on one leg. Standing on one leg, Hillel replied: 'What is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go study it."
..........— Karen Armstrong (1944 - ), British thinker and author of books on religion. The Bible: A Biography (2007). Hillel (הלל) (ca. 110BCE - died 10CE) was a Jewish religious teacher and one of the leaders of the Pharisees, a sect that preceded present-day Rabbinic Judaism.

[WT Sharpe]

.....Rogers could therefore not understand why white economists, ethnologists, and sociologists, as well as historians, would always adduce the law of “cause and effect” to help explain white societal ills that derived from, say, the Civil War; but whenever the mental effects of slavery were discussed to explain the plight of blacks, some of these same scholars would snarl: “Don’t mention something that happened 150 years ago; it has no bearing on what is happening today. Slavery is over” Yet how was it possible for four centuries of fear, rape, torture, self-abnegation, family separation, and dehumanization to have no effect on the way African Americans viewed themselves?
..........— Mike McBryde, actor, artist, writer. "Joel Augustus Rogers: A Leading Scholar, Thinker, and Motivator" from African-American Humanism: An Anthology, edited by Norm R. Allen, Jr. (Prometheus Books, 1991).

[WT Sharpe]

.....Dolphins' remarkable alertness may result from their ability to sleep on one side of the brain at a time.
..........— New Scientist, April 30, 2009


Hmmm… I know lots of people who seem to use no more than half their brain at any given time. Maybe one side of their brain is sleeping, but they don't strike me as being particularly alert.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....Dolphins' remarkable alertness may result from their ability to sleep on one side of the brain at a time.
..........— New Scientist, April 30, 2009


Hmmm… I know lots of people who seem to use no more than half their brain at any given time. Maybe one side of their brain is sleeping, but they don't strike me as being particularly alert.

That's because it's not a "side" they are half-using.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's because it's not a "side" they are half-using.

Seriously though, considering the differences in the two hemispheres of our brains, if humans could do that I wonder how it would affect our perception of reality and our perception of self? And could some humans be doing that already? I suppose that would be a question for a brain researcher.

[kennyc]

There are cases where the hemispheres have been separated (due to seizures) and it gives some very interesting results. Also cases of brain damage to one or the other hemisphere where the remaining half pick up the tasks of the missing half -- not in a total missing half though as far as I know. Amazing stuff.

http://www.google.com/search?q=split...ient=firefox-a

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

There are cases where the hemispheres have been separated (due to seizures) and it gives some very interesting results. Also cases of brain damage to one or the other hemisphere where the remaining half pick up the tasks of the missing half -- not in a total missing half though as far as I know. Amazing stuff.

http://www.google.com/search?q=split...ient=firefox-a

Oh, yes, I'm familiar with split-brain patients. Get the non-verbal half to perform an action or undergo an experience to which the verbal half is not privy, then ask the person to explain why the action was done, and the person will inevitably come up with a rational they fully believe as to why they performed said action, but one that has no bearing as to the real reason for the action. It could go a long way toward explaining some people's reactions to what they hear via a certain "news" organization.

[Stitchawl]

I think we know plenty of folks currently not in their 'right mind.'


Stitchawl

[WT Sharpe]

.....Why is it the people who oppose gay rights are always the biggest drama queens?
..........— Bill Mahar (1956 - ), American comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. "New Rule: About Face," from Real Time with Bill Maher, iTunes date 3/24/2010. Mahar stated in that broadcast, "New rule: it's time for conservatives to stop abandoning their heroes just when they come out of the closet to reveal that they're sane," a reference to the negative feedback directed at General Petraeus when he said that it was time to re-think "Don't ask, don't tell."

[WT Sharpe]

.....By this time you are probably aware of the fact that the brothers were congenital liars. You mustn't be too hard on us because we had discovered early in life that steady and consistent lying was the only road to survival.
..........— Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (1890 – 1977),American comedian, actor, and author. Groucho And Me (1959).

[kennyc]

Hee-Hee.

[WT Sharpe]

.....ἔστιυ δὲ μήτηρ φιλότεκνος μάλλον πατρός ᾑ μὲν γὰρ αὑτῆς οἰδεν ὂνθ᾿, ὁ δ᾿ οἲεται.
.....A mother loves her child more than a father does, for she knows it's her own while he but thinks it's his.
..........— Menander (Μένανδρος); ca. 342–291 BCE), Greek dramatist. Menander: The Principle Fragments, With an English Translation by Francis G. Allinson (1921), Unidentified Minor Fragments, 657 K.

[kennyc]

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.

-- William Faulkner