History Quote Buff

"Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idolized past, a past which never in fact existed." - Frank Herbert, "The God Emperor of Dune", pp 540

"Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of the people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments …

"From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached" - Franz Kafka

"All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenaline and the desire to gain personal power. All rebels are closet aristocrats." - Leto II - Frank Herbert, "God Emperor of Dune", pp 36

“In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action - what is often called ruthless - what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.”—Willard, Apocalypse Now

"A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. But we know the major conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers -- One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. Three: When the p…

"A theory has to be used, it has to work. And not just for itself. If there is no one to use it, starting with the theorist himself who, as soon as he uses it ceases to be a theorist, then a theory is worthless, or its time has not yet arrived." - Gilles Deleuze, "Intellectuals and Power", A Dialogue Between Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, 1972

"[T]he astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only…

Debt: the First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber, Melville House, 2021, p. 119.

“We need to think very strategically about how to use social media – always remembering that, despite the egalitarianism claimed for social media by capital’s libidinal engineers, that this is currently an enemy territory, dedicated to the reproduction of capital. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t occupy the terrain and start to use it for the purposes of producing class consciousness. We must break out of the ‘deb…

"We need to learn, or re-learn, how to build comradeship and solidarity instead of doing capital’s work for it by condemning and abusing each other. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we must always agree – on the contrary, we must create conditions where disagreement can take place without fear of exclusion and excommunication." - Exiting The Vampire Castle, Mark Fisher, 2013

"So what can we do now? First of all, it is imperative to reject identitarianism, and to recognise that there are no identities, only desires, interests and identifications." - Exiting The Vampire Castle, Mark Fisher, 2013