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Modern life27 quotes
And the wind shall say:
"Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls." — T.S. Eliot · 1934Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchased in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats that you've spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life...but why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? — Mark Renton · 1996A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers. — Albert Camus · 1956Give us this day our television, and an automobile, but deliver us from freedom. — Madeleine Zimmer · 1966The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. — Matthew Arnold · 1867The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less. — Vaclav Havel · 1983All 27 quotes →Decline of religion3 quotes
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. — Matthew Arnold · 1867You have riches and freedom here but I feel no sense of faith or direction. You have so many computers, why don't you use them in the search for love? — Lech Walesa · 1988In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion. — Robert Runcie · 1988Disenchanted world3 quotes
And the wind shall say:
"Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls." — T.S. Eliot · 1934The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. — Matthew Arnold · 1867In the deep windings of the grove, no more
The hag obscene, and the grisly phantom dwell;
Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar
Of winds is heard the angry spirit's yell. — James Beattie · 1774Downsides of freedom2 quotes
No, I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, who to love and how to tell them. — Fleabag · 2019Freedom, though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated and, thereby, anxious and powerless. — Erich Fromm · 1941Change1 quote
Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. — Theodore Roosevelt · 1905Christmas1 quote
You see, Mrs. Walker, this is quite an opportunity for me. For the past 50 years or so I've been getting more and more worried about Christmas. Seems we're all so busy trying to beat the other fellow in making things go faster and look shinier and cost less that Christmas and I are sort of getting lost in the shuffle. — Kris Kringle · 1947Cold War1 quote
Our gadget-filled paradise suspended in a hell of international insecurity. — Reinhold Niebuhr · 1957Consumerism1 quote
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel,
A boutique, and a swinging hot spot. — Joni Mitchell · 1970Drugs1 quote
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchased in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats that you've spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life...but why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? — Mark Renton · 1996Economic development1 quote
Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. — Theodore Roosevelt · 1905Entertainment1 quote
In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation. — Guy Debord · 1967Freedom1 quote
The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion. — Sitting BullGarden of Eden1 quote
We are stardust,
We are golden,
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden. — Joni Mitchell · 1969Heroin1 quote
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchased in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats that you've spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life...but why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? — Mark Renton · 1996Inflection points1 quote
It was at the highest point in the arc of a bridge that I became aware suddenly of the depth and bitterness of my feelings about modern life, and of the profoundness of my yearning for a more vivid, simple, and peaceable world. — John Cheever · 1978Loss of Eden1 quote
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel,
A boutique, and a swinging hot spot. — Joni Mitchell · 1970Middle class life1 quote
Commuter-one who spends his life
In riding to and from his wife;
A man who shaves and takes a train,
And then rides back to shave again. — E.B. White · 1982Middle class respectability1 quote
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchased in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats that you've spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life...but why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? — Mark Renton · 1996Native American life1 quote
The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion. — Sitting BullOver-development1 quote
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel,
A boutique, and a swinging hot spot. — Joni Mitchell · 1970Progress1 quote
Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things. — Willa Cather · 1929Sex1 quote
The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfilment. — Malcolm Muggeridge · 1966Simple living1 quote
The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion. — Sitting BullTechnological progress1 quote
Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things. — Willa Cather · 1929Technology1 quote
Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things. — Willa Cather · 1929The Middle Ages1 quote
In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion. — Robert Runcie · 1988The human condition1 quote
Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things. — Willa Cather · 1929