We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. - Anais Nin

Visions are indispensable - but dangerous precisely to the extent that we confuse them with reality itself. - Thomas Sowell

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber-a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. - President George W. Bush, September 2001

Later [after the attack on the USS Cole] the Mujahideen saw that the gang of black hearted criminals in the White House was misrepresenting the event, and that their leader, who is a fool whom all obey, was claiming that we were jealous of their way of life, while the truth-which the Pharaoh of our generation conceals-is that we strike at them because of the way they oppress us in the Muslim world, especially in Palestine and Iraq, and because of their occupation of the Land of the Two Holy Places. When the Mujahideen saw this they decided to act in secret and to move the battle right into his [the U.S. president's] country and his own territory. - Osama Bin Laden, March 2003

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
So it is said that if you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. - from the Taoist sacred texts

Readings of October 22, 2006