watching it rise

The greater part of most people’s thinking is involuntary, automatic, and repetitive. It is no more than a kind of mental static and fulfills no real purpose. Strictly speaking, you don’t think: Thinking happens to you. The statement “I think” implies volition. It implies that you have a say in the matter, that there is a choice involved on your part. For most people, this is not yet the case. “I think” is just as false a statement as “I digest” or “I circulate my blood.” Digestion happens, circulation happens, thinking happens.
– Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth

The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.
— John Cage

Time wastes itself. Who are we to float in its way?
–Iain Banks in The Algebraist

What we remember is not the event itself, we remember the last time we remembered it.
– Ajahn Brahmavamso

The whole point of freedom of speech, if you ask me, is because it makes it easier to spot the assholes on the horizon.
– Elizabeth Bear, talking about Don Imus