Michael Walkerjohn

e. e. cummings Quotes. A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man.

'An oasis in the heart of Bangkok'

Everything should be as Simple as possible, but not simpler.

'I come to cleanse the American flag, not burn it.'

'That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.'

'Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standard-ism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.'

''I think I need a drink.' 'Almost everybody does only they don't know it.''

'There is no way to peace. Peace is the way'

'The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson'

'We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.'

'Educational enterprises do not for any length of time remain immune from the struggle of interests for power which is the dominant feature of social life under a class system.'

'When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.'

'The way of peace is a seamless garment that must cover the whole of life and must be applied in all its relationships, '

Once a reporter asked him, 'Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle? ' A.J. Muste replied softly: 'Oh I don't do this to change the country. I do this so the country won't change me.'

'We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty.'

'Résumé Razors pain you, Rivers are damp, Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give, Gas smells awful. You might as well live.'

'If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.'

'Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.'

'I like to have a martini, Two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host.'

''Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppression's... too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.''

'As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.'

'If even the slightest desire to be free has arisen in you, you should pat yourself on the back, you are very lucky. Billions of lives on this planet don't have this blessing. They do not even live. They exist, die and dissolve. They are not bored. Even if they are bored, they're bored about something very small. A little change can make them very comfortable again. So, blessed are those who get bored! '

'Imagination is not enough. Knowledge is necessary.'

'I wanted to change the rules of engagement, asking for more- from fewer. I was insisting that we had to have only the best people...If you wanted excellence, at a minimum, the ambience had to reflect excellence.'

"To expect disaster and desert the sinking ship is not a political act, but it is often a profoundly creative one, both personally and socially. To do it, one must have vitality of one's own that is not entirely structured and warped by the suicidal system. Going it alone may allow for new development."

"Muste did not write to be studied in the abstract. The Essays call to the conscience of each reader to engage in ‘responsible living... being engaged in the struggle against injustice and tyranny' as he expressed in his ‘Sketches for an Autobiography.' When Muste died, the notice read: ‘in lieu of flowers, friends are requested to get out and work-for peace, human rights, for a better world.'

"Historians of the future who want to know what it meant to live with integrity in the twentieth-century era of wars and revolutions will very likely begin with the life of A.J. Muste. He has confronted the violence which threatens to destroy us with the whole of his life. I am one of the many who has learned from him the virtues of grace under pressure, and how to bring to bear wit and compassion simultaneously."