No argument on my part, but this quote from Daniel Deronda came to mind as perfectly expressing the opposite. “A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labours men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference among the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood.”
I agree with both sentiments, actually, as one who had no roots anywhere until I was in my late forties, and have now been living in the same house for almost thirty years. When I settled down, I was already a citizen of the world. That has given me an appreciation of knowing a home, and made me reluctant to pull up stakes again. Travel should be a prerequisite for everybody. As Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice." He himself traveled the world, but knew the attraction of at last being settled in one place.
Or this, from Sir Walter Scott: Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
And this from T. S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time."
I've lived in the US and have spoken mostly English since 1996, but I still curse and count in my native language. - IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan.
In high school, we had a Finnish exchange student. Along about April of her senior year, I came into class to discover her sniffling a tiny bit. I asked what was wrong. She said, "I think it is time for me to go home. I talked to the dog in English this morning."
I know this is more for literary quotes, but never mind. This is a quote I discreetly took down, spoken by a woman in sixties to man in sixties, next to me on top of the no.76 bus: "I think she's having an affair, week on Saturday. I think it co-incides with the Keynsham festival"
There's a remarkable documentary on the street cats of Istanbul. Well worth checking out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4420704/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
"No, the drunk is in charge." -Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, responding to a foreign reporter who said that "Turkey is ruled by twenty bandits and a drunk." (Ataturk downed a bottle of 80-100 proof raki every day)
Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. - James Madison, The Federalist Papers
I don't often reply to my own posts, but ... "Former President Donald Trump is back on Twitter. His messages from his own operation, Truth Social, are now being posted under the new Twitter profile “President Donald J. Trump’s Truth Social Posts.”
I thought this was funny. "The whole city is full of it, the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers: they are all busy arguing. If you ask somebody to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask 'Is my bath ready?' the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing." -- Gregory of Nyssa, written at the time of the First Council of Constantinople
"Freedom of the press is reserved for those who own one." American Journalist A.J. Liebling, war correspondent during that fascist thing many of our parents were involved in. After the war he became a Paris based expat.
You really have to specify your age range for that one (and which side/extent of "involved in"). My grandfather was involved in combatting the Pacific allies of the fascists I assume you're alluding to (discussions of the exact nature and classification of the Tojo regime will be held at a date to be determined), but just as you seem to be a peer, roughly, of my parents some of the membership here are peers of my niece and might be getting worried about where Dad actually was on [REDACTED, see Debate Room for discussion] and why he pulls the curtains when a squad car cruises by.
My dad was in a non-combat post in the occupation forces Philippines-Okinawa-Korea because my Uncle had been killed earlier in Europe.
"Golden lotus that show off a pretty pantone, and grow in river water that’ll melt your fucking hand off, damn, it’s funny ‘cause I fake a smile too, people thinking you’re ok until you take ‘em to the root, I’m a take ‘em to the root, through insatiable depravity and layers of abuse, down to radiate the truth." -Aesop Rock, "Sleeper Car" Been listening to a lot of rap again and forgot how much I love digging into these lyrics. This song has an abrasive beat that takes some getting used to but damn, the lyrics are incredible.
old school Disney flicks: your family's dead and now you gotta fight a villain new school Disney flicks: your family's alive and now you gotta deal with their bullshit - Kenny Keil, on Twitter
“Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.” – Sun Tzu "Get there first with the most men." -- Nathan Bedford Forest
"If you knows of a better 'ole, you go to it." --- One Tommy to another, crouched in a crater with shells going off overhead on the Western Front, in a famous newspaper comic from the time
"If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me." -Alice Roosevelt, daughter of US president Theodore Roosevelt. She had it embroidered on a pillow that she kept on her sofa.