Ali: “We All Have The Same God”

“We all have the same God, we just serve him differently. Rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, oceans all have different names, but they all contain water. So do religions have different names, and they all contain truth, expressed in different ways forms and times. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew. When you believe in God, you should believe that all people are part of one family. If you love God, you can’t love only some of his children.”

~ Muhammad Ali
(born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942–)
A former American boxer and three-time
World Heavyweight Champion, between 1964
and 1979, who is widely considered one of the
greatest heavyweight championship boxers of all time.
“The Soul of a Butterfly:
Reflections on Life’s Journey”
(2004)

~cave canem~ vvvv

Nietzsche: “Philosopher At War”

“War is another matter.
I am warlike by nature.
Attacking is one of my instincts.
Being able to be an enemy, being an enemy—perhaps that presupposes a strong nature; in any case, it belongs to every strong nature. It needs objects of resistance; hence it looks for what resists: the aggressive pathos belongs just as necessarily to strength as vengefulness and rancor belong to weakness. Woman, for example, is vengeful: that is due to her weakness, as much as is her susceptibility to the distress of others.

The strength of those who attack can be measured in a way by the opposition they require: every growth is indicated by the search for a mighty opponent—or problem; for a warlike philosopher challenges problems, too, to single combat. The task is not simply to master what happens to resist, but what requires us to stake all our strength, suppleness, and fighting skill—opponents that are our equals.

Equality before the enemy: the first presupposition of an honest duel. Where one feels contempt, one cannot wage war; where one commands, where one sees something beneath oneself, one has no business waging war.

My practice for war can be summed up in four propositions.

• First: I only attack causes that are victorious; I may even wait until they become victorious.

• Second: I only attack causes against which I would not find allies, so that I stand alone—so that I compromise myself alone.—I have never taken a step publicly that did not compromise me: that is my criterion of doing right.

• Third: I never attack persons; I merely avail myself of the person as a strong magnifying glass allows one to make visible a general but creepy and illusive calamity. Thus I attacked David Strauss—more precisely, the success of a senile book with the “cultured” people in Germany: I caught this culture in the act.
  Thus I attacked Wagner—more precisely, the falseness, the half-couth instincts of our “culture” which mistakes the subtle for the rich, and the late for the great.

• Fourth: I only attack things when every personal quarrel is excluded, when any background of bad experiences is lacking. On the contrary, attack is in my case a proof of good will, sometimes even of gratitude. I honor, I distinguish by associating my name with that of a cause or a person: pro or con—that makes no difference to me at this point. When I wage war against Christianity I am entitled to this because I have never experienced misfortunes and frustrations from that quarter—the most serious Christians have always been well disposed towards me. I myself, an opponent of Christianity de rigueur (in accordance with good manners), am far from blaming individuals for the calamity of millennia.”
  

[as appears  in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, pg 687, by Walter Kaufmann]

~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(Oct. 15, 1844-Aug. 25, 1900)
German philosopher and classical philologist
Ecce Homo, Why I Am So Wise, 7.

~cave canem~ vvvv

Krishnamurti: “Innocence of the Present, Always Alone”

“Meditation is the innocence of the present, and therefore always alone. The mind that is completely alone, untouched by thought, ceases to accumulate. So the emptying of the mind is always in the present. For the mind that is alone, the future—which is of the past—ceases. Meditation is a movement, not a conclusion, not an end to be achieved.
One must really understand this question of the past—the past as yesterday, through today, shaping tomorrow from what has been yesterday. Can that mind, which is the result of time, of evolution, really be free of the past? Which is to die. It is only a mind that knows this, that can come upon this thing called meditation. Without understanding all this, to try to meditate is just childish imagination.

[from "Meditation" to "achieved" The Only Revolution, p.94.
from "One must" to "imagination" Beyond Violence, p. 117.]

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Telugu: జిడ్డు కృష్ణ మూర్తి, Tamil: கிருஷ்ணமூர்த்தி)
(12 May 1895 – 17 February 1986)
Philosopher, public speaker, and writer,on psychological,
sociological, and spiritual subjects.
“Meditations” p. 107.

~cave canem~ vvvv

~My Mind, Aloud: “Death ~ Herald of Completion”

Fear not the Angel of Death;
for his arrival simply heralds
the completion of one cycle,
and the beginning of another.

 

~ Dead Dog Barking (May 1972 –)

~My Mind, Aloud: “Wasn’t Time?”

Was there ever a time
that there wasn’t time?

~ Dead Dog Barking (May 1972 –)

Wilde: “Never Approve, or Disapprove”

“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now.
It is an absurd attitude to take towards life.
We are not sent into the world
to air our moral prejudices.
I never take any notice of what common people say,
and I never interfere with what charming people do.”

~ Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
(16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900)
Irish writer and poet.

~cave canem~ vvvv

Nietzsche: “Smell of Entrails”

“May I still venture to sketch one final trait of my nature that causes me no little difficulties in my contacts with other men? My instinct for cleanliness is characterized by a perfect uncanny sensitivity so that the proximity or—what am I saying?—the inmost parts, the “entrails” of every soul are physiologically perceived by me—smelled.

This sensitivity furnishes me with psychological antennae with which I feel and get a hold of every secret: the abundant hidden dirt at the bottom of many a character—perhaps the result of bad blood, but glossed over by education—enters my consciousness almost at first contact. If my observation has not deceived me, such characters who offend my sense of cleanliness also sense from their side the reserve of my disgust—and this does not make them smell any better.”

[as appears  in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, pg 689, by Walter Kaufmann]

~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(Oct. 15, 1844-Aug. 25, 1900)
German philosopher and classical philologist
Ecce Homo, Why I Am So Wise, 8.

~cave canem~ vvvv

Nietzsche: “Annihilator—Being Creative”

“And whoever wants to be a creator in good and evil, must first be an annihilator and break values. Thus the highest evil belongs to the greatest goodness: but this is—being creative.”

[as appears  in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, pg 712, by Walter Kaufmann]

~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(Oct. 15, 1844-Aug. 25, 1900)
German philosopher and classical philologist
Ecce Homo, Why I Am A Destiny, 2.

~cave canem~ vvvv

~My Mind, Aloud: “Simple Power; Observation”

The simple power of
keen Observation
is grossly underestimated.

~ Dead Dog Barking (May 1972 –)

~My Mind, Aloud: “The Human Mind’s Reality

Reality for the Human Mind is simply
it’s self-interpretation of two things;
perspective and perception.

~ Dead Dog Barking (May 1972 –)