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FUNNY QUOTES

I like to wake up each morning felling a new man. -
Author: Jean Harlow

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by
Author: Douglas Adams

I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.
Author: Walt Disney

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up
Author: Barbara Bush

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
Author: Groucho Marx

I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.
Author: Rudyard Kipling

I never married because I have three pets at home that answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning, a parrot that swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night. -
Author: Marie Corelli

I once heard two ladies going on and on about the pains of childbirth and how men don't seem to know what real pain is. I asked if either of them ever got themselves caught in a zipper.
Author: Emo Philips

I played a lot of tough clubs in my time. Once a guy in one of those clubs wanted to bet me $10 that I was dead. I was afraid to bet
Author: Henry Youngman

If you work on a lobster boat, sneaking up behind someone and pinching him is probably a joke that gets old real fast.
Author: Jack Handey

If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
Author: John Wayne

If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think it's okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to teach him to do some tricks. But ONLY if you're serious about adopting the vulture.
- Deep Thoughts (Saturday Night Live)
Author: Jack Handey

If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either.
Author: willy Cavett

In our school you were searched for guns and knifes on the way in and if you didn't have any, they gave you some.
Author: Emo Philips

In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was pro da. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One.
Author: Yakov Smirnoff

In the first place God made idiots; that was for practice; then he made school boards.
Author: Mark Twain



fides quaerens intellectum

Clarissa,

I am sorry you took what I wrote to be a bit "offensive", I didn't mean to come off that way at all.  I was speaking theoretically in order to try to understand what you are talking about.  Like I tried to explain, most of us here do not understand how your meetings take place.  If it is not in the "astral" and not phsyically, then it has to be in some other "dimension"- When I said "mental" level, I didn't mean to take anything away from what you to have, whether it be adulterous and wrong or not, but obvsiously it's not in the spiritual realm/Out of Body, so it must be on some mental level- there is nothing wrong with that, so please don't take offense.

fides quaerens intellectum

James S-

You said two things that I would like to comment on.  One thing you said I think was dead wrong and the other I thought had a lot of validity.

First the thing I thought you said that is dead wrong is the following:
"I can't say that I've ever seen any good come out of organised religion"

I was saddened by this comment because it reflects the general feeling most people have towards organized religion, and I can understand why- at least to a point. Although many individuals have and continue to do horrendous things in the name of religion, you must never forget that there are millions of individuals who associate themselves with various organized religions who are wonderful people who do wonderful things, and God loves and supports them.  

Here are just a few things I know which are done in the name of organized religion:  Mother Theresa, the Catholic nun, dedicated her entire life to service and embodied every good attribute I can think of.  I know an old woman in Kentucky who happens to be a Christian who drives around her town picking up donations and then gives them to poor individuals.

The Church of Jesus Christ, of which I am a member, sends truck loads and plane loads of goods to impoversihed countries and to cities that are struck by natural disaster and then they try not to get media coverage in order toinsure that no one think they do these things to be seen by the world.

I have a friend who is a proetestant and he and his family make blankets and have food drives- and all of this is done as a charity.  I know of many other churches and individuals, many of them non-Christian, who are organized and effective in spreading good.  Of course there are many people who use organized religion as a wat to disguise their inflated egos and destructive appetities, but I also know many individuals like that who are associated with "new age" ideas.

The other thing you said, which I thought was valid and important for many individuals in this forum was the following:

"To this point I don't really believe Christ himself has any objections to OBEs. I have prayed a lot on this subject. The basic answer I got is that there is nothing wrong with OBEs, but there are more beneficial things for me to work on in terms of my spiritual development. "

While OBE's are incredible and vastly important for our spiritual progress and understanding, I fear many are "looking beyond the mark" and trying to atain states of cosciousness that they are not ready for.  Also, besides meditation and prayer, there is a lot we need to do on our feet such as making friends, helping individuals who are struggling in life and are lost in the quagmire of the world- people who worship money, drugs, sex, etc. These people need us and we need to find ways to touch their lives.  We also need to dedicate oursleves to raising our families and if we don't have families then we need to find our calling in this life.  

I would love to go on, but I am quite iill and it's hard for me to read/sit up...

I thank you all for your ideas and opinions and I send my love to all who participate in this open, positive enviornment in which we can share our ideas and perspectives on life, liberty and the pursuit of OBE!  [(:]  <--if this doesn't look like a smile, it's supposed to be!

-Dan

fides quaerens intellectum

Clarissa-

There's one thing you haven't mentioned, or maybe I missed it: does he experience this in the same way you do?  For example, when you do talk to him on the phone or whatever does he say "Yeah, that was great last night- I liked it when...."  I am not trying be funny or crude, I just want to understand this.  I feel I speak for nearly everyone when I say that I have never heard of this.  Astral sex yes, in the sense that one is out of body and in a deep trance state.  But it seems you simply lie down and he does too and then you meet on some mental level to make love.  

-

fides quaerens intellectum

Hello K2sixx and everyone else!

I consider myself a disciple of Jesus Christ and look to Him in all things as a guide and an example.  I know that what we have termed "OBE" is something recognized by true Christians today.  There are several mentions of "OBE's" in the scriptures and there would be more if the prophets/writers considered it to be something strange, but they didn't!  It is today's society that looks for "proof" and "mentions" of these things when in fact they are age old naturally occuring spiritual phenomenon.  I agree with Fallnangel in that John recieved the majority of this revelations in what we would contemporarily deem "the astral".  Had they known we would have began closing our eyes so tightly today they probably would have spelled these things out better- but it's good they didn't because the best way to discover these "hidden mysteries" is to first follow the simple cammandment of "love one another as I have loved you".  Since most cannot do this they of course cannot open their eyes to the "true" reality.  There is such thing as spiritual evolution and sadly our technology and apathy is increasing the already astronomical amount of spiritually lethargic  people remain in a virtual "spiritual ice age" of their own creation.  Throw in violent media, pornography and the like and some of the apathetic turn to pure evil.  God help us.

-Daniel



fides quaerens intellectum

fallnangel- thanks, I'll check that out.  About copyright, I recently read that when you finish something and prep it to send out to publishers, all you have to do to protect it- at least initially- is to write "Copyright" your name and then the date.  You can even insert that fancy little copyright symbol.  Then, from what I understand, when/if you are pusblished they do it for you.  Good luck with whatever you are working on!

Tisha- thank you for all the info, some of it I knew but some of it was new to me.  I really appreciate it!





fides quaerens intellectum

RainyDaze-
I'd be happy to answer your question.  Yes it's true that young men serving as full-time representatives for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are not allowed to bath/swim in the open water (sea, ocean, lakes, etc.).  This rule, like nearly every other rule missionaries follow, is likely to have be instituted due to accidents in the past.  I personally know of several instances in which missionaries drowned after entering the water.  Another reason has to do with the fact that missionaries are to have no physical contact with members of the opposite sex and we all know that when one goes swimming one tends to see scantily clad young women.  That may sound funny or strange to some, but after having served a two year mission in Southern Italy, I can tell you right now that had we been able to go to the beach I might have gone crazy!  http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

There is indeed another reason I am aware of that led to the creation of this rule.  It seems that before this rule was implemented, a number of LDS missionaries were spiritually/psychically attacked.  Many have elluded to that fact that water may be manipulated easier by negative energies/spirits.  I find this somewhat bewildering in that we, as Latter-Day Saints, like many others, look at water as a great purifying element which is used in baptism as well as cleansing the earth.  Go figure... God works in mysterious ways and so does Satan.

That's more or less all  I know on the subject.

-Daniel

fides quaerens intellectum

Muzza- have you read "Burning Chrome"?  It's a collection of short storied by Gibson.  I haven't read any of his full length novels, just the aforementioned book.  I find his style refreshing and even a little challenging.  

Ludlum, on the other hand is the author of such books as "The Bourne Identity".  He's not the greatest writer, but he will hook you.  

Astralmaster- who is Stephanson and what does he write?

I myself am on a big fiction kick right now because I had been reading almost all non-fiction works for quite a while.

fides quaerens intellectum

For what it's worth my friend, you are not alone when it comes to fear of OBE affecting your health adversely.  There are many indivudals, a lot of whom are children and teens, who have experienced OBE and are deathly afraid of it due to misinformation or total ignorance.  There are also many who experienced it totally spontaneously!  I think that would be even more frightening because at least you had some preconceived notion of OBE.

I know if I were in your shoes it would help to know that I am not alone.

fides quaerens intellectum

For those of you whop may have thought I was coming out of left field with this, or thought it really didn't have much practical application towayds p. defense, check out what Robertwrote recently under his post regarding the show he is doing tomorrow:

Bruce:
"The interview with Whitley should be very interesting and I'm really looking fwd to it. We share a lot of similar experiences, including ET abductions and Neg attacks, etc. If you read his books, especially 'Communion' and 'Transformation', and change the word 'Visitor' to 'Neg', you'll see its clear we are talking about the same thing. However, not all of Whitley's 'visitor' encounters have been negative, as you will see if you read his books.

As for ET's, well, I have been physically abducted twice that I know of. I have also encountered some ET types during OBE's. I also once encountered what could only be called 'The Men in Black'. We'll probably discuss some of these on the radio show. I'll write up the stories on these one day when 'I have time. I have not so far written of my ET encounters for various reasons, but feel more comfortable talking about it after talking with Whitley and his wife, Anne.

Oh, I have written to Jeff Rense, offering to do a radio interview. But people like Jeff and..."


fides quaerens intellectum

Actually, I just knew they were going to rape me..I never actually "experienced" it in the dream, thank goodness!

fides quaerens intellectum

Regardless of whether he is legit or not, I think the dead contact us when they want and we shouldn't try to contact them.  They usually contact us in their own special way (dreams, OBE, etc).  I think one runs the risk of being decieved by negs when he or she seeks to channel deceased individuals.

fides quaerens intellectum

"I have read your book and much like it."
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"The covers of this book are too far apart."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
- Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."
- Mae West (1892-1980)

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
- Elvis Presley (1935-1977)

"No Sane man will dance."
- Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

"Hell is a half-filled auditorium."
- Robert Frost (1874-1963)

"Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you."
- Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

"Vote early and vote often."
- Al Capone (1899-1947)

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Hell is other people."
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

"I am become death, shatterer of worlds."
- Robert J. Oppenheimer (1904-1967) (citing from the Bhagavad Gita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion)

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
- Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982)

"Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."
- Thomas Jones

"You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
- Al Capone (1899-1947)

"The gods too are fond of a joke."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting."
- Gloria Leonard

"It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man."
- Professor Scott Elledge on his retirement from Cornell

"Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work."
- Robert Orben

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


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"Attention to health is life greatest hindrance."
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"Plato was a bore."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

"I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy."
- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

"Hemingway was a jerk."
- Harold Robbins

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"How can I lose to such an idiot?"
- A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)

"Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday."
- Woody Allen (1935-)

"I don't feel good."
- The last words of Luther Burbank (1849-1926)

"Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure."
- Ross MacDonald (1915-1983)

"Men have become the tools of their tools."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"It is now possible for a flight attendant to get a pilot pregnant."
- Richard J. Ferris, president of United Airlines

"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."
- Gore Vidal

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."
- Woody Allen (1935-)

"Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives."
- Abba Eban (1915-)

"To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me."
- Charles William Stubbs

"Sanity is a madness put to good uses."
- George Santayana (1863-1952)

"Imitation is the sincerest form of television."
- Fred Allen (1894-1956)

"Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take."
- Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)

"Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research."
- Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

"Why don't you write books people can read?"
- Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."
- T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

"Criticism is prejudice made plausible."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"It is better to be quotable than to be honest."
- Tom Stoppard

"Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting."
- Karl Wallenda

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
- Sun Tzu

"A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar."
- Lao-Tzu (570?-490? BC)

" The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
- Alan Kay

"Never mistake motion for action."
- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

"Hell is paved with good samaritans."
- William M. Holden

"The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"Silence is argument carried out by other means."
- Ernesto"Che"Guevara (1928-1967)

"Well done is better than well said."
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"The average person thinks he isn't."
- Father Larry Lorenzoni

"Heav'n hath no rage like love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd."
- William Congreve (1670-1729)

"A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted."
- Helen Rowland (1876-1950)

"Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century."
- Perelman

"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready."
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"There is a country in Europe where multiple-choice tests are illegal."
- Sigfried Hulzer

"Ask her to wait a moment - I am almost done."
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), while working, when informed that his wife is dying

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943

"I think it would be a good idea."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" "
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy."
- Von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- Irving Kristol

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates (1955-), in 1981

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible."
- A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
- H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood."
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."
- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- Tom Clancy

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince"

"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame."
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep."
- Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."
- Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
- Yogi Berra

"There is only one nature - the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole."
- Bill Wulf

"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)


"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)


"I criticize by creation - not by finding fault."
- Cicero (106-43 B.C.)


"Love is friendship set on fire."
- Jeremy Taylor


"God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time."
- Robin Williams, commenting on the Clinton/Lewinsky affair


"My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate."
- Unibomber Theodore Kaczynski, when asked in court what his current profession was


"Woman was God's second mistake."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."
- Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon reading a young physicist's paper


"For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)


"Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)


"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)


"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.


"Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run."
- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)


"He would make a lovely corpse."
- Charles Dickens (1812-1870)


"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb


"I worship the quicksand he walks in."
- Art Buchwald


"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)


"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
- Paul Valery (1871-1945)


"We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction."
- General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)


"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?"
- Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing


"#3 pencils and quadrille pads."
- Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when asked what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer; he also recommended using the back side of the pages so that the lines were not so dominant.


"I just bought a Mac to help me design the next Cray."
- Seymoure Cray (1925-1996) when was informed that Apple Inc. had recently bought a Cray supercomputer to help them design the next Mac.

"Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis."
- Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

"I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need."
- Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"The truth is more important than the facts."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
- Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)



fides quaerens intellectum

"A clever man commits no minor blunders."
- Goethe (1749-1832)


"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours."
- Richard Bach


"A witty saying proves nothing."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)


"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."
- Will Durant


"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."
- Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)


"It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti


"I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means."
- Clarence Darrow, Scopes trial, 1925.


"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
- Henry Ford (1863-1947)


"I'll sleep when I'm dead."
- Warren Zevon


"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)


"If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head."
- Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)


"Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together."
- Georg Lichtenberg (1742-1799)


"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it"
- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)


"While we are postponing, life speeds by."
- Seneca (3BC - 65AD)


"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
- Bumper Sticker


"God, please save me from your followers!"
- Bumper Sticker


"Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches."
- the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life


"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)


"Luck is the residue of design."
- Branch Rickey - former owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Team


"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

"Wit is educated insolence."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher."
- Socrates (470-399 B.C.)

"Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
- Gore Vidal

"Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them."
- Samuel Palmer (1805-80)

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows."
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

"Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny."
- Guy Davenport

"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
- Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

"We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
- Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
- Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
- Paul Dirac (1902-1984)


"I would have made a good Pope."
- Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)


"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin."
- John von Neumann (1903-1957)

"The mistakes are all waiting to be made."
- chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956) on the game's opening position

"It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"Grove giveth and Gates taketh away."
- Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) on the trend of hardware speedups not being able to keep up with software demands

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)


"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation."
- H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)


"There are two ways of constructing a software design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
- C. A. R. Hoare


"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


"What do you take me for, an idiot?"
- General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy


"I heard someone tried the monkeys-on-typewriters bit trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was the collected works of Francis Bacon."
- Bill Hirst


"Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do."
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)


"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)


"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)


"A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)


"Logic is in the eye of the logician."
- Gloria Steinem

"No one can earn a million dollars honestly."
- William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)


"Everything has been figured out, except how to live."
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)


"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
- Martin Fraquhar Tupper

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it."
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966)

"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."
- Goethe (1749-1832)

"In the end, everything is a gag."
- Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)

"The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people."
- Lucille S. Harper

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
- Yogi Berra

"I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known."
- Walt Disney (1901-1966)

"He who hesitates is a damned fool."
- Mae West (1892-1980)

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."
- Gail Godwin

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
- Henry Kissinger (1923-)

"The graveyards are full of indispensable men."
- Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty."
- Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)

"Behind every great fortune there is a crime."
- Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)

"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning."
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- General George Patton (1885-1945)

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"I don't even butter my bread; I consider that cooking."
- Katherine Cebrian

"I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it."
- Steven Wright

"Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour."
- Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

"Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure."
- Oliver Herford (1863-1935)

fides quaerens intellectum

"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo."
- H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)

"Don't be so humble - you are not that great."
- Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

"His ignorance is encyclopedic"
- Abba Eban (1915-)

"If a man does his best, what else is there?"
- General George S. Patton (1885-1945)

"I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better."
- A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)

"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet."
- Saint Augustine (354-430)

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work."
- Emile Zola (1840-1902)

"This book fills a much-needed gap."
- Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review

"The full use of your powers along lines of excellence."
- definition of"happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."
- e e cummings (1894-1962)

"Give me a museum and I'll fill it."
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

"Assassins!"
- Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his orchestra

"I'll moider da bum."
- Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."
- Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650), "Discours de la Methode"

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right."
- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."
- Yoda ('The Empire Strikes Back')

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed."
- George Burns (1896-1996)


"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)


"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."
- Edsgar Dijkstra


"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."
- Bjarne Stroustrup


"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
- Paul Erdos


"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."
- Salvador Dali (1904-1989)


"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)


"But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near."
- Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)


"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato (427-347 B.C.)


"Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"We have art to save ourselves from the truth."
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)


"I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it."
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) when asked what is his favorite song


"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."
- H. G. Wells (1866-1946)


"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."
- Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)


"The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."
- unknown


"If you are going through hell, keep going."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)


"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)


"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)


"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death."
- H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)


"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)


"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them."
- Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)


"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
- J. Paul Getty (1892-1976)


"Facts are the enemy of truth."
- Don Quixote - "Man of La Mancha"


"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
- George Washington Carver (1864-1943)


"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."
- Anais Nin (1903-1977)


"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)


"I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right."
- Frederick (II) the Great


"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell."
- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)


"Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact."
- George Eliot (1819-1880)


"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)


"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
- Steven Wright


"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)


"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
- Walt Disney (1901-1966)


"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time."
- Vince Lombardi


"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell


"A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship."
- John D. Rockefeller (1874-1960)


"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)


"You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it."
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)


"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)


"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."
- Umberto Eco


"Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down."
- Jimmy Durante


"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)


"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953


"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


"Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working."
- Albert Giacometti (sculptor)


"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)


"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
- Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)


"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life."
- Frank Zappa


"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint Exupery


"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
- Isaac Asimov


"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
- Carl Sagan


"It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts."
- G. B. Burgin


"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
- Auric Goldfinger, in "Goldfinger" by Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)


"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance"
- - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)


"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
- Jimi Hendrix

fides quaerens intellectum

Funny I find this topic today when indeed yesterday I had one of the worst dreams I have had in a LONG time.  I rarely have nightmares, but yesterday while taking a nap I dreamed I was taken prisoner by this group of terrorists (not Middle-Easterners, just for the record).  There was no use trying to escape and when I signaled to my wife (who entered the place where I was with a tour group) they told me that I was going to have one of my testicles chopped off).  Later I found myself floating in a house and then back in the compound.  When I finally escaped I took a hot shower and then the terrorists entered it and raped me.  What a great dream!  I have no idea what is symblozies and frankly, I don't want to know.  I think it had to do with a spy thriller I am reading the a film I had finished watching right before I went to sleep.  Also, the room was hot and when I am warm I am prone to have nightmares.

fides quaerens intellectum

The thread is entitled:
"Prerequisites for obe-ing"

I recommend reading that to get a better idea of what I was talking about.
-Dan

fides quaerens intellectum

I think it was Frank, myself and a few others who conversed briefly about astral "sex" in a thread he started called "Training Ground" or something.  I think it's valid to bring up the who point about how, at least initially, there are barriers set up to "trap" beginners from ascending too high.  One of these obstacles is ones sensual urges.  Many individuals find difficulty ascending to the realms they desire to visit because they can't control their urges (ie. Tom)... RObert Monroe, aka "Old Man OBE" wrote about this exact thing  in his thrid book,  Far Journeys.  Anyway, I am interested to hear more from Clarissa (what are you writing my dear?http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile_question.gif" border=0>)

-D

fides quaerens intellectum

Koshka-

Thank you for your comments.  I can only imagine how it would feel to lose a child or someone else that close to me.  

-Daniel

fides quaerens intellectum

I'm sorry, but the info in that last post sounds a bit crazy.  One can carry the conspiracy thing a little too far.  I think everyone agrees (including an acquaintance of mine who was a student at Columbine and was there the day of the shootings) that Columbine was a tragedy brought on by two very twisted and demonic teens.

fides quaerens intellectum

Bhikku-
The excitement is definetly one of the hardest things to keep under control intitially and just like you, I end up waking up when I get too excited as I realize that I am dreaming.  Good luck!

fides quaerens intellectum

I believe in God because I talk to him everyday and He tells me what to do.  I know He loves me because I see his love in nature and in the eyes of everyone I meet.

fides quaerens intellectum

aphexcoil - you're an econ major, that explains it all!  JK!  I agree with what others have said, keep an open mind and pursue the OBE phenomena and I think eventually you will discover there's a lot more to "reality" than you presently accept.

fides quaerens intellectum

Quotes

Authors cited

"Of the estimated 500 million species of plants
and animals that have existed since life began on earth,
only about 2 million are here today.
This means that about 99.5 percent of
all species have become extinct."

Extinct and Vanishing Species
V. Ziswiler


"Humanity must stop behaving like a Gengis Khan
of the solar system and think of itself... as nature's co-pilot."

Edgar Morin,
French Sociologist


"We have for a long time being breaking little laws,
and the big laws are beginning to catch up with us."

A.F. Coventry


"We've poisoned the air, the water, and the land.
In our passion to control nature,
things have gone out of control.
Progress from now on has to mean something different.
We're running out of resources and
we are running out of time".

Robert Redford,
American Actor


"Mankind is part of nature and life depends on
the uninterrupted functioning of natural systems."

World Charter for Nature - Adapted by the
General Assembly of the United Nations, 1982


"The most important cause of extermination and the greatest threat
to wildlife is the destruction or alteration of habitat."

Breaking the Web
Utelz & Johnson


"The more devices we infent for dominating nature,
the more we must serve them if we are to survive."

The Revolt of Nature


"Without habitat, there is no wildlife.
It's that simple."

Wildlife Habitat Canada


 
"On a practical level conservation has been sustained
by an interplay between professionals and radical amateurs.
Professionals keep the movement organized. Amateurs keep it honest.
The ghosts of Muir and Pinchot still wrestle for control -
in a fractious but symbiotic embrace."

Stephen Fox -
John Muir & his Legacy


"What has gone wrong, probably, is that we have failed
to see ourselves as part of a large and indivisable whole.
For too long, we have based our lives on a primitive feeling
that our "God-given" role was to have "dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."  
We have failed to understand that the
earth does not belong to us, but we do the earth."

Rolf Edberg


"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?
The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air
and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
We are part of the Earth, and it is part of us...
We know the white man does not understand our ways.
One portion of land is the same to him as the next -
for he is a stranger who comes in the night
and takes from the land whatever he needs."

Chief Seattle, 1854


"If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?
Cut and move on and take out the trees
take out wildlife at a rate of a species every single day
take out people who lived with this for 100,000 years -
inject a billion burgers of beef -
grain eaters - methane dispensers -
Through thinning ozone,
waves fall on wrinkled earth -
gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
speak of a drowning -
but this, this is something other,
busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
where wild things have to go to disappear forever...
If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Bruce Cockburn,
Canadian singer


"There is but one earth, one biota, and our actions
in the developed and developing world alike are destroying
that which is irreplaceable. There are no quick solutions...
nor is there a second chance."

US National Science Board 1989


"We known ourselves to be made from this earth.
We know this earth is made from our bodies.
For we see ourselves.
And we are nature.
We are nature seeing nature.
We are nature with a concept of nature.
Nature weeping.
Nature speaking of nature to nature."

Susan Griffin
Woman and Nature


"After all, we cannot expect nature's foregiveness forever".

Monte Hummel
World Wildlife Fund Canada


"I am pessimistic about the human race
Because it is too ingenious for its own good.
Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission.
We would stand a better chance of survival if
We accommodated ourselves to this planet
And viewed it appreciatively instead of
Skeptically and dictatorially".

E.B. White


What is the use of a house if you don't have
a decent planet to put it on?

Henry David Thoreau


"To waste, to destroy, our natural resources,
to skin and exhaust the land instead of
using it so as to increase its usefulness,
will result in undermining in the days of our children
the very prosperity which we ought by right to
hand down to them amplified..."

Theodore Roosevelt,
former American President


"Alone in space, alone in its life-supporting systems,
powered by inconceivable energies, mediating
them to us through the most delicate adjustments,
wayward, unlikely, unpredictable, but nourishing,
enlivening, and enriching to the largest degree -
is this not a precious home for all of us earthlings?
Is it not worth our love?
Does it not deserve all the inventiveness and courage
and generosity of which we are capable to preserve it
from degradation and destruction and, by doing so,
to secure our own survival?

Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos
Only One EARTH


"The human brain now holds the key to our future.
We have to recall the image of the planet from outer space:
a single entity in which air, water, and continents
are interconnected. That is our home."

David T. Suzuki,
Canadian Geneticist, Journalist and Environmentalist


"So I felt this burning summer. In form I might
belong to humankind; in reality I seemed one of a
ravenous self-destroying horde of rats.
I am glad there is no God. If there were,
I cannot imagine that we rampant, myopic, and
insatiably self-centred creatures should
be allowed to survive a single day more".

John Fowles,
British Author


"We've got to save the world
Someone's children, they may need it.
So far we've seen
The big business of extinction bleed it.
We've got to save the world.
We're at the mercy of the few,
With evil hearts determined to
Reduce this planet to hell,
Then find a buyer and make a quick sale.
We've got to save the world
Someone else may want to use it.
It's time you knew
How close we've come.
We've gonna lose it - we gotta save,
we gotta save, we gotta save the world".

George Harrison,  
Beatles singer - "Save the World"


"Putting ecological politics into actions means approaching life
with imagination and intelligence, knowledge and emotion,
responsibility and culture. It fights against bureaucracy
and ideology, uniformity, authoritarianism, and any attempt
to eliminate diversity and autonomy. And to everyone
it offers a new friend: the Earth'.

Mario Signorino, President and Founder
Amici della Terra Italia
(Friends of the Earth, Italy)


"We haven't just inherited the earth from our forefathers,
our society continues to borrow its endowments from our children."

Lois James,
Rouge Park Champion


"Most people are on the world, not in it - have
no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them -
undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone
like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate...
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast
has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places
standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize
that whatever special nests we make - leaves and moss like the marmots
and birds, or tents or piled stone - we all dwell in a house of one room -
the world with the firmament for its roof - and are sailing the
celestial spaces without leaving any track..."

John Muir, 1888
American Author and Naturalist


"Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees".

Revelation 7:3


"Now that green has become the fashionable prestige color,
we should be careful not to be diverted or misled by products,
projects, technologies, or institutions that may proclaim
themselves 'green' but in reality use this as a cover to continue
exploit both nature and people. Our fear is that the
rhetoric of ecology will be used by the power structures
to confuse and mislead. Policies that are designed
by corporate interests or on their behalf are being drawn up in
nice-sounding ecological terms such as 'sustainable development'
and 'forestry action plans'. Environmentalists therefore have to
continue to give deep interpretations and clear analysis of the
ecological crisis, and to have critiques of the false solutions."

S.M. Mohd. Idris,
Friends of the Earth, Malaysia


"If the environment can't support beavers, ducks or moose,
how long will it be able to support people?

Commemorative Stamp Bulletin
Canada Post Corporation


"We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life
through the destruction of our ecology, and yet each
one of us, in our own little comfortable ways,
contributes daily to that destruction.
It's time now to awaken in each one of us the
respect and attention our beloved Mother deserves."

Ed Asner,
American actor


"The multiple threats to the Earth are so complex
that in most cases they seem beyond the reach of an
average citizen's influence. Yet we can all launch a
personal campaign to reduce consumption - though perhaps
only after a change of mind-set, to overcome the fear of
seeming poor, parsimonious or eccentric.
This does not mean being deprived or uncomfortable.
It simply means stopping to think, before each purchase,
'Do I really need this?' For years a small minority has been living
and thinking thus. If a large majority did lilkewise -
if frugality and shabbiness could become trendy - then the Earth,
though not saved, would be measurably less endangered."

Dervla Murphy,
Irish Author


"If we love our children, we must love our earth
with tender care and pass it on, diverse and beautiful,
so that on a warm spring day 10,000 years hence
they can feel peace in a sea of grass,
can watch a bee visit a flower,
can hear a sandpiper call in the sky,
and can find joy in being alive".

Hugh H. Iltis


"The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort,
are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief,
for when the light comes,
the heart of the people is always right."

John Muir


"Our cities must be decentralized into communities, or
ecocommunnities, exquisitely and artfully tailored to
the carrying capacity of the ecosystems in which they are located.
Our technologies must be readapted and advanced into ecotechnologies,
exquisitely and artfully adapted to make use of local energy sources
and materials, with minimal or no pollution of the environment.
We must recover a new sense of our needs -
needs that foster a healthful life and express our individual
proclivities, not "needs" dictated by the mass media.
We must restore the human scale in our environment
and in our social relations..."

Ecology Action East Manifesto, 1969

FROM:http://www.blackhole.on.ca/quotes.html

fides quaerens intellectum

Some Editorial Reviews of the film:
                     Amazon.com
                     Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra star in this visually stunning metaphysical tale of life after
                     death. Neurologist Chris and artist Annie had the perfect life until they lost their children in an auto
                     accident; they're just starting to recover when Chris meets an untimely death himself. He's met by a
                     messenger named Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and taken to his own personal afterlife--a freshly drawn
                     world reminiscent of Annie's own artwork, still dripping and wet with paint. Meanwhile a depressed
                     Annie takes her own life, compelling Chris to traverse heaven and hell to save Annie from an eternity
                     of despair.

                     The multitextured visuals seem to have been created from a lost fairy tale. Heaven recalls the
                     landscape paintings of Thomas Cole and Renaissance architecture complete with floating cherubs,
                     while hell is a massive shipwreck, an upside-down cathedral overgrown with thorns and a sea of
                     groaning faces popping out of the ground (one of those faces is German director Werner Herzog).
                     Williams is the perfect actor to play against the imaginative computer-generated imagery--he himself
                     is a human special effect. But the lack of chemistry between Williams and Sciorra is painfully
                     apparent, and the flashback plot structure flattens the story's impact despite its deeply felt
                     examinations of the heart and the spirit. Still, there's no denying Eugenio Zanetti's triumphant
                     production design and the Oscar-winning special effects, which create a fully formed universe that is
                     at once beautiful, eerie, and a unique example of movie magic. --Shannon Gee

                     From Widescreen Review:
                     Picture Quality: 4    (5 is the highest rating)     Sound Quality: 5    (5 is the highest
                     rating)


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                     4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

                              Really Dreamy !, June 5, 2001
                     Reviewer: Umeshchandra Tongbra (see more about me) from Bangalore, Karnataka,
                     INDIA
                     Firstly, it deserved it's Academy award for Visual Effects . The painted style of Robin
                     William's "heaven" is breath-taking. You begin to appreciate this scene more after you go
                     through the "extras" on the DVD where the SFX people explain the efforts that had gone
                     into it.You marvel at the SFX of the movie but I wonder if one would still be amazed
                     considering the glut of plotless SFX movies in these times. The overall picture quality of
                     the DVD is good and the dolby digital 5.1 sound is excellent with good surround effects !

                     Coming to the movie, it starts of with a breathtaking scene of Switzerland (the scene
                     was actually shot in Montana) with it's lush surroundings and the crystal clear water
                     with the breathtaking mountains in the backdrop. You can almost smell the flowers and
                     one is inclined to take a deep-breath on experiencing the opening scene.

                     The movie then starts to crawl for the next 20 minutes or so. I guess the director was
                     probably trying to build up the characters and their interactions but nonetheless, it
                     crawls a bit. Once that's over the tempo starts to build up !

                     And yea ... the alternate ending if of lessor audio/video quality but is pretty nice
                     nonetheless. I like the part in which Cuba Gooding says "What do you mean by 'I' ? Is it
                     your arm, your leg ... we are IN a house but we are NOT the house..." and implies that
                     when we are finished with a house we move on and it's the same with our body and soul.
                     The depiction of hell is pretty gloomy and at the same time leaves us confused as to
                     what to make of the director's interpretation and depiction of the scenes.

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                     8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

                              Stellar film and visual effects!, February 12, 2001
                             Reviewer: David Litton (see more about me) from Topsail Beach, NC USA
                             There is such a profound sense of drama, magic and emotion behind the story
                     in "What Dreams May Come," a film based on the novel by Richard Matheson. There is a
                     strong story with which anyone who loves someone else can identify, as well as an
                     austentatious and elegant scope of visual and auditory imagery that jumps right for your
                     eyes onscreen. Matheson's visions of heaven and hell are magnificently realized here, as
                     well as the love between two people that is unbreakable, even after death.

                     The movie begins with the chance meeting of two American tourists traveling in
                     Switzerland. Soon after, Chris and Annie become inseperable, and after their wedding,
                     they bear two children. Many years later, Ian and Marie are killed in a car collision,
                     leaving their parents distraught yet overcoming. Another couple of years later, Chris dies
                     in a car accident as well, on his way to celebrate the "Double D" anniversary of his wife's
                     emotional recovery from their childrens' deaths. This begins his trip into heaven, which is
                     rocky at first during his attempts to console his living wife, then graduating into his
                     acceptance of his immortality and ascemding into heaven, which turns out to be the
                     creation of his own thoughts and settings. When he realizes that he is not completely
                     happy without Annie, he becomes depressed, so it is no surprise that when Annie
                     commits suicide and is sent to hell, he readies himself to rescue his wife from her
                     emotional confines that keep her in her prison of eternal darkness.

                     The story for this movie is very ambitious, as are the filmmakers who bring it to life.
                     There is an abundance of vivid memories in the form of flashbacks, many of which are
                     precisely used to move the plot along and keep the story moving. Instead of becoming
                     bored with the ongoing story of Annie and Chris's married and parental life, I found
                     myself becoming more and more entranced as their lives unfolded, and say what you will,
                     but the only way to tell a story like this is through flashbacks. If you were to take all of
                     the memories and place them in order at the beginning of the movie, the audience would
                     forget about the important moments that have an effects on the actions and events
                     that take place in later instances of the film. Each one is a separate piece of the puzzle,
                     and they all fit together quite well.

                     This film is one of those movies that showcases the possibilities for filmmaking in the
                     future. Really, when you think about it, there is no way that the movie could have been
                     made thirty years ago and still have the same impact as it does now. The settings and
                     scenery play the most important role of the movie, for they provide the reason for the
                     emotion and action that affects our characters. The beginning shots in Switzerland show
                     us beautiful vistas of mountains and lakes, which will later become the inspiration for
                     Chris's heaven, as well as many of the paintings Annie creates. Their home bursts forth
                     with color and brightness, proving that color plays a big role in the film. When everyone
                     is alive, everything seems light and airy. After Chris's death, all is dark, and the walls of
                     the home seem dismal and gray. One scene in particular is a scene in which Chris
                     watches his children being driven away in their van down a long line of lilac trees, a
                     slight fog covering the scene. Their is that brilliance of color, yet the dark fog makes us
                     uneasy, hence the accident that kills their children.

                     Heaven is elegantly portrayed in this film, and is done so with a new twist: that each
                     person has their own private heaven created in the image of their own personal desires
                     and thoughts. Chris's heaven is based on the paintings of his wife, from the mountains of
                     Switzerland to a small island in the middle of a mountain lake with an opulent, airy house.
                     The filmmakers give each scene the precise look of a painting, even after the special
                     effects fade, using vivid colors, lots of flowers and mountainous backdrops, to transport
                     us into Chris's new world. This is one of the most incredible film achievements ever,
                     taking us to a special place that is warm, inviting, and personifies every thought we, as
                     an audience, have ever had for beauty and vision.

                     Hell is given a truly horrifying and intense treatment, displaying visions of suffering as
                     well as the personal and emotional pain of life that haunts us all. Somewhat like the way
                     in which Heaven is created, Hell is seen as a persons's "life gone wrong," which allows for
                     the creation of their pain-driven eternity. The gateway to hell is a stunning visual image,
                     a vast, smoky graveyard of smoldering shipwrecks that creak and groan. There is also a
                     dismal, endless sea of decrepit faces of hell's inhabitants, that groan and scream at one
                     another. The most striking of all the settings is the overturned cathedral, where Annie
                     resides. The columns rise from the ceiling and go on forever into the darkness, which
                     gives the whole place a sense of the neverending.

                     There is a unique chemistry between the two leads that carries on the film's emotion and
                     power. Robin Williams is charming, humorous and bold as Chris Nielsen, and through his
                     acting and talent, he is able to make us believe in the love that Chris holds for Annie.
                     Annabella Sciorra is moving as Annie, embodying all of the emotions and grief that set
                     the stage for the second half of the story. When the two are together onscreen, they
                     are happy and in love, and we buy it because they make it appear very authentic. Cuba
                     Gooding, Jr. plays the angel that brings Chris to heaven, doing well in his performance of
                     helping Chris through his struggle to realize his death. Max von Sydow, whose part is not
                     as big as others he has had, is the tracker who takes them all to hell, and his words of
                     wisdom keep the film's informative angle moving.

                     "What Dreams May Come" will go down in history as one of the most innovative and
                     spectacular films ever made, full of ambition and inspiration. In its story, we are taken on
                     a journey of the human heart, as well as a striking vision of what may lie in store for
                     everyone under God's eye.

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                              What my dreams became..., July 2, 2002
                     Reviewer: Carrie from Easton, PA USA
                     I fell upon this while watching the sci-fi channel, and thought that it looked interesting.
                     It ended up being my new favorite movie! It had a very distinct plot, yet I do not
                     recommend this for children under 12. 'What Dreams May Come' follows the quest of a
                     man who dies and goes to heaven. When he finds out that his wife has commited
                     suicide, he ventures off the the underworld to persuade his wife to forgive herself so she
                     can join him in heaven. --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.

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                     2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

                              Interesting Premise, Great Special Effects & Bonuses (DVD), May 4, 2002

                     Reviewer: sirch (see more about me)
                     The strength of "What Dreams May Come" is the fascinating vision of the afterlife and
                     Robin Williams' Homeric odyssey to the underworld to rescue his wife, plus the wonderful
                     visual effects/cinematography [the scene where Robin Williams' character finds himself in
                     a painted world (literally) come to life (or afterlife, technically) is amazing].

                     The DVD hilights these strengths with extras that include cool menus, a making of
                     featurette, a not-so-happy alternate ending and various production and special effects
                     notes.

                     As a purely dramatic film, "What Dreams" falls a little short (being at times overly sappy
                     and melodramatic), but with an original story, some good acting (Williams and Cuba
                     Gooding, Jr. aer a good amtch, and the actress who plays Williams' adult daughter is also
                     very good) and strong visuals and some good extras and you have a keeper.
                     Also recommended: 'City of Angels' (an angel gives up its wings for love); 'Michael' (angel
                     of the afterlife visits Earth) and 'Princess Bride' (a fairy tale quest for true love).

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