Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and there freedoms.
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San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
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I have tamed men of iron in my day, shall I not easily crush these men of butter?
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Hard pounding, gentlemen: but we shall see who can pound the longest.
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Read Homer once, and you can read no more. For all books else appear so mean, and so poor. Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read, and Homer will be all the books you need.
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When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro.
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To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing for 10 shillings what any fool can do for a pound
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There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
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When my journal appears, many statues must come down.
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The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.
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I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me.
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We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.
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A gambler in a lucky streak can't get lucky unless he's shooting dice or doing what he likes best.
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A fully equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and dukes are just as great a terror -- and they last longer.
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It was completely 'guilty till proven innocent' instead of the other way around. It's a shame. . . . I've been reserving judgment until the trial. You'd think the administration at Duke, one of the finest universities in the country, would react the same way.
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Habit is ten times nature.
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I was thinking, 'Thanks goodness we had a cushion,' because we did have some breakdowns. All the credit goes to Duke.
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Educate people without religion and you make them but clever devils.
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I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
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There are two kinds of worries -- those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.
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A man is a god in ruins.
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Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging.
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Without change something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
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Duke (in disguise). I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke? Escalus. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially t...
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Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
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A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
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[Duke] wrote of his wish to support a form of education 'conducted along sane and practical lines,' ... He goes on to specify that he means 'sane and practical as opposed to dogmatic and theoretical.' At first hearing you might have thought he meant sane and practical as opposed to insane and impractical, or kooky and clueless.
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We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France.
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Don't talk - keep it in your heart.
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