Died on June 25 — Quotes

When all life is seen as divine, everyone grows wings.

But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God's creation embraces me.

What all these people are doing is not aggressive; they are inventing new possibilities of pleasure with strange parts of their body — through the eroticization of the body. I think it's ... a creative enterprise, which has as one of its main features what I call the desexualization of pleasure.

Success, fame, and fortune, they're all illusions. All there is that is real is the friendship that two can share.

We appreciate politeness when we are far from home. We may have different ideas of the word. An incivility or supposed incivility in a strange land cuts very deep and even a great or unlooked for kindness almost brings tears for one is apt to say to himself you are very good but maybe its because I'm a stranger, and he is forcibly reminded of home where kindness is taken thoughtlessly as a matter of course. Impressions are stronger away from home as you have discerned. If by politeness then is meant goodness, it is appreciated by me as I trust it always has been, but if it is to mean the string of ceremonies generally used for concealing ill nature, and which have been found necessary to the existence of every society whose members are wanting in self respect and morality, I detest it more than ever. I have often used the word in both these acceptations, but I don't like it. My prominent idea of a polite man is one who is nothing but polish. It is an unenviable reputation. If there was anything else in him the polish would never be noticed. He is a bad drawing finely worked up, and Gérôme says that every attempt at finish on a bad design serves only to make the work more contemptible.

I'm starting with the man in the mirror,
I'm asking him to change his ways;
And no message could have been any clearer,
If you wanna make the world a better place,
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change!

If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn’t be any such thing as the Second Amendment . . . . This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

In its most general form, confinement was explained, or at least justified, by a will to avoid scandal. It thereby signalled an important change in the consciousness of evil. The Renaissance had let unreason in all its forms come out into the light of day, as public exposure gave evil the chance to redeem itself and to serve as an exemplum.

Wer kann es sagen, wer nur ahnen, wie weit das Geistesvermögen der Tiere geht!

Les discours sont des éléments ou des blocs tactiques dans le champ des rapports de force; il peut y en avoir de différents et même de contradictoires à l'intérieur d'une même stratégie; ils peuvent au contraire circuler sans changer de forme entre des stratégies opposées.

No one has ever suggested that tax exemption has converted libraries, art galleries, or hospitals into arms of the state or employees "on the public payroll." There is no genuine nexus between tax exemption and establishment of religion.

SUSPEND ALL OFFENSIVE ACTION. REMAIN ALERT.

How shall I do to love? Believe. How shall I do to believe? Love.

change is inevitable

The Victory tour was my first chance to be exposed to the Michael Jackson fans since Thriller had come out two years earlier. There were some strange reactions. I’d bump into people in hallways and they’d go, “Naw, that can’t be him. He wouldn’t be here.” I was baffled and I’d ask myself, “Why wouldn’t I? I’m on earth somewhere. I’ve got to be somewhere at any given time. Why not here?” Some fans imagine you to be almost an illusion, this thing that doesn’t exist. When they see you, they feel it’s a miracle or something. I’ve had fans ask me if I use the bathroom. I mean, it gets embarrassing. They just lose touch with the fact that you’re like them because they get so excited. But I can understand it because I’d feel the same way if, for instance, I could have met Walt Disney or Charlie Chaplin.