Quotes that hit home

[Rupert]

Went to see a chap who collected these black comedy cartoons from WW1. This is the most famous. 

'Well if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it.'




https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1998-06-181-30

[rcjordan]

When Zuck smiles, the devil shivers  ^--/u

[rcjordan]

Web 1.0: The web is for information
Web 2.0: The web is for ads
Web 3.0: The web is for scams  --bsky

[Drastic]

Some people learn by reading, others by observation. The rest have to piss on the electric fence for themselves.

[buckworks]

Spotted on BlueSky:

If you believe everything you read, better not read. - Japanese Proverb 😏

[rcjordan]

I hold the entirety of the world's knowledge in my hand, and yet I choose to look at Garfield memes ^-Bsky

[rcjordan]

"Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it" ^{attributed to Aubrey de Grey}

[ergophobe]

No candle ever got longer.
  -- David Cornwell, aka John Le Carre in a birthday note to his son Nick (aka Nick Harkaway).

"My dearest Nick, I have had this little candlestick in my work room for the last 25 years - from the last years of my first marriage and all through my second till today. It acquired a corny but real symbolism for me. And in bad times, I would shove a candle into it and light it as some kind of affirmation of belief in myself, my talent, my survival. For this reason, I wish you to have it now, with my love, as an antidote to occasional despair. I hope it will remind you that you are a good man when you need reminding, and your own man and no one else's; and that you have one life only, and no candle ever got longer; and that you have a great spirit and a lot to do."

Quoted in the Nick Harkaway interview on Fresh Air from John Le Carre's collection of letters, "A Private Spy."
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5159882

[ergophobe]

"You almost never hear about people named Laura and Elena eating Tide Pods or blowing off their final exams."

  -- Scott Galloway on the deficits of the young male brain
https://www.profgalloway.com/slow-dopa-2/

[ergophobe]

"I am not a great teacher. I am, however, a good teacher. The difference is that a good teacher can teach students who want to learn, whereas a great teacher can inspire students to want to learn."
  -- Cory Doctorow - https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/07/delicious-pizza/

[ergophobe]

"I heard someone say recently that the reason so many people are skeptical AI will improve society – or are terrified it will do the opposite – is because it's not clear the internet (and phones) made their life better."
  - Morgan Housel
https://collabfund.com/blog/a-few-things-im-pretty-sure-about-2026/


Another from the same article

"I have a theory about nostalgia: It happens because the best survival strategy in an uncertain world is to overworry. When you look back, you forget about all the things you worried about that never came true. So life appears better in the past because in hindsight there wasn't as much to worry about as you were actually worrying about at the time."

[rcjordan]

I will kill you with a gun if I'm mad or afraid or you're in my way. Every home a fortress, every car a tank, every school a prison, every person armed and for themself. -bsky

[ergophobe]

>> mad or afraid

Related?

"But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock... And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had—power."

 - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, Chapter 29.

[littleman]

All this is pretty dark, but I am trying to interpret what "pharisees" means to Nietzsche in this quote given what I know about him and 19th century Prussian perspective on Jews.

After reading it a few times I believe he's of the perspective that the pharisees were overbearing in their pursuit of rules and punishment.

I guess the relation would be that the drive for "street justice" is the same as the drive for iron-fisted control, the difference is relative to power.  Somewhere in between would be the motivation of a mass shooter?


Now imagine that same bsky quote in a world where everyone rode a bicycle and and no one had a gun. We are definitely not bononos though.