Family Guy S10E03: Quagmire has something to say to his sister

Brenda, the fact that you are being abused has affected my life in the following ways.

The sister that I knew and loved growing up no longer exists. The person I now before me now is just a punching bag. And I call you “person” not woman because a woman is strong, beautiful, vibrant creature. A woman embraces life. A woman makes choices to make her life better. Sadly, the fact that you are with Jaff proves to my that you have made a choice to make your life worse. I . . . I want the girl I grew up with back. I want . . . I . . . I want my sister back. I . . . Brenda, I love you. Please make the right decision.

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The Political Ideas of George Orwell

As a result, the Communists tried to portray Orwell either as a traitor who played into the hands of the right-wing or as the work of a disillusioned and desperately ill man. Brian Rubin quotes Llew Gardner of the Daily Worker: “When he wrote1984, the anti-socialist work that shocked the nation on television, George Orwell was sick in mind and body, a fast dying man” (18 December 1954.) Although Orwell had been seriously ill with tuberculosis since 1947 and his health had not been good before that – he acknowledged in a letter to George Woodcock that the book was gloomy because he had been feeling so ill when he wrote it – it is a gross distortion to suggest that he was mentally ill. Orwell had been making plans for a further novel and arranging for treatment in a Swiss clinic when he had his fatal lung haemorrhage. Certainly, he was expecting to live a little longer. Apart from the obvious political tactic of trying to denigrate Orwell, to see Nineteen Eighty Four in psychological terms is to ignore the fact that the book draws together ideas that Orwell had been expressing for more than ten years.

 

The Political Ideas of George Orwell

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Audrey Hepburn’s Philosophy

“For my whole life, my favorite activity was reading. It’s not the most social pastime.” 

— Audrey Hepburn

Is it not? I thought I could socialise with the characters that authors create for their readers. But I like this saying, anyway.

 

“Elegance is the only beauty that never fades.”

— Audrey Hepburn

So true! Elegance is the only thing in my whole life I forever pursue.

 

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” 

— Audrey Hepburn

I always feel happier and more content when I realise I can give rather than be given. That’s why I thought about working in charities.

 

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!”

— Audrey Hepburn

There’s another my faviourite quote from the film, Chicken Run: “Where there’s will, there’s a way.” Isn’t this so true?

 

“There is one difference between a long life & a great dinner; in the dinner, the sweet things come last.” 

— Audrey Hepburn

 

 

 

 

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Quotes in The Little Book of Philosophy

“To philosophise is to think for oneself; but no one can truly do so without drawing on the thoughts of others, especially those of the great philosophers of the past.”

 

“Philosophy is not a science, nor is it wisdom, nor even knowledge: it is a meditation on what knowledge is available. This is why you cannot learn philosophy, according to Kant: you can only learn to philosophize. How? By philosophizing yourself: by thinking about your own thoughts, the thoughts of others, the world, society, about what experience has taught you, and what it hasn’t taught you … Hopefully, in doing so, you will come across a work by some professional philosopher along the way.”

 

“… because we need to think about the thins we know, the things we experience, the things we desire, questions which knowledge alone cannot answer or dismiss.”

 

“What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? What is man? ‘… the first three question relate to the last,’ he remarks. But all of them, I would add, lead to a fifth which, philosophically and humanly, is probably the most important: How should I live? As soon as one tries to answer this question intelligently, one begins to philosophize.”

 

“‘Philosophy,’ wrote Kant, ‘is man’s striving for wisdom, which is ever incomplete.'”

 

“Philosophy is about thinking better in order to live better.”

 

“Ethics begins when we are free: it is freedom itself, when that freedom is considered and controlled.”

 

to be continue . . .

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Descendants

The most beautiful things oftentimes are the most dangerous.

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Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

I got this saying from an animation, Chicken Run. I like it very much, and it is always my belief!

When my friends begin doubting if they are able to achieve what they dream, what they wish, I always tell them with a cheerful smile, “YOU WILL DO IT”. Instead of telling them what they “can”, I rather make them more confident, I say to them, “You will”. “Can” is a choice, but “Will” is a persistent statement that will make people see their bright future.

As my UK study is about to finish, but I still want to stay in England for a bit while because I love England. So I say to myself, “If I happen to go back to Taiwan, I WILL come back and make myself a living in England very soon, in a year.” I have a will, and “I WILL.”

People ask me, “Don’t you miss your family?”

Yes, I do, and I miss them and love them so much. But it is the freedom I’m pursuing (I grew up in a very protective family), and it is the English speaking environment I’m pursuing. No matter where I go, that doesn’t decrease the love I give my family. 🙂

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True friends . . .

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Why Is Being different Meant to Be Insane?

“So, let’s turn to your illness: Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other?”

“No.”

“If someone were to ask, the response they’d get would probably be: ‘You’re crazy.’ If they persisted, people would try to come up with a reason, but they’d soon change the subject, because there isn’t a reason apart from the one I’ve just given you. So to go back to your question. What was it again?”

“Am I cured?”

“No. You’re someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness.”

“Is wanting to be different a serious illness?”

“It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else. It causes neuroses, psychoses, and paranoia. It’s a distortion of nature, it goes against God’s laws, for in all the world’s woods and forests, he did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it’s insane to be different, and that’s why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?”

Mari nodded.

“People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different, and then the organism starts to produce Vitriol, or bitterness, as this poison is more commonly known.”

“What’s Vitriol?”

Dr. Igor realized he had gone too far and decided to change the subject.

“That doesn’t matter. What I mean is this: Everything indicates that you are not cured.”

 

 

Quoted from “Veronika Decides to Die”

 

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Quotes from “Eleven Minutes”

“All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free.” (21 August at 12:22)

‎”In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.
It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone.
That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.” (21 August at 12:41)

From Maria’s diary – “Eleven Minutes”

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To him…

“I’ve met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I’m not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months’ time, I’ll be far away and he’ll be just a memory, but I couldn’t stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit.

I’m writing a story for Ralf Hart–that’s his name. I’m not sure he’ll come back to the club where I work, but, for the first time in my life, that doesn’t matter. It’s enough just to love him, to be with him in my thoughts and to coloor this lovely city with his steps, his words, his love. When I leave this country, it will have a face and a name and the memory of a fireplace. Everything else I experienced here, all the difficulities I had to overcome, will be as nothing compared to that memory.

I would lke to do for him what he did for me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I realize that I didn’t go into that cafe by chance; really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction.

Everyone knows how to love, because we are all born with that gift. Some people have a natural talent for it, but the majority of us have to re-learn, to remember how to love, and everyone, without exception, needs to burn on the bonfire of past emotions, to relive certain joys and griefs, certain ups and downs, until they can see the connecting thread that exists behind each new encounter; because there is a connecting thread.

And then, our bodies learn to speak the language of the soul, known as sex, and that is what I can give to the man who gave me back my soul, even though he has no idea how important he is to my life. That is what he asked me for and that is what he will have; I want him to be very happy.”

From Maria’s diary – Quoted from “Eleven Minutes”

To the man I love…

Sunday, 22 August 2010 at 23:28

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