The following are some things read that always stuck out to me as important and or relevant.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

Carl Sagan, Demon Haunted World

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

The forest kept shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that he was one of them because his handle was made of wood

Turkish Proverb (supposedly)

When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So, he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions. By thoughts I mean specifically “chatter in the skull”… perpetual and compulsive repetition of words… of reckoning and calculating.

I’m not saying thinking is bad. Like everything else, it’s useful in moderation. A good servant, but a bad master – and all so called civilized peoples have increasingly become crazy and self-destructive. Through excessive thinking, they have lost touch with reality.

Most of us would have rather money than tangible wealth… and a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed… and to read about it the next day in the newspaper is oddly more fun for us than the original event. This is a disaster.

To get in touch with reality there is an art of meditation… It is the art of temporarily silencing the mind… of stopping the “chatter in the skull”. Of course you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flat iron. Water become cool and clear only when left alone.”

Alan Watts