Spinoza Happiness

“Every man’s true happiness and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that he alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others. He who thinks himself the more blessed because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or because he is more blessed or more fortunate than his fellows, is ignorant of true happiness and blessedness, and the joy which he feels is either childish or envious and malicious. For instance, a man’s true happiness consists only in wisdom, and the knowledge of the truth, not at all in the fact that he is wiser than others, or that others lack such knowledge: such considerations do not increase his wisdom or true happiness. Whoever, therefore, rejoices for such reasons, rejoices in another’s misfortune, and is, so far, malicious and bad, knowing neither true happiness nor the peace of the true life.” –Spinoza

Gabo on Artists and Writers....

In general, I'm not a friend of writers or artists just because they are writers or artists. I have many friends of different professions, amongst them writers and artists. In general terms, I feel that I'm a native of any country in Latin America but not elsewhere. Latin Americans feel that Spain is the only country in which we are treated well, but I personally don't feel as though I'm from there. In Latin America I don't have a sense of frontiers or borders. I'm conscious of the differences that exist from one country to another, but in my mind and heart it is all the same.
Márquez, Gabriel García and Peter H. Stone (Interviewer). The Art of Fiction. No. 69, 1981.

Gabo on Faulkner

I'm not sure whether I had already read Faulkner or not, but I know now that only a technique like Faulkner's could have enabled me to write down what I was seeing. The atmosphere, the decadence, the heat in the village were roughly the same as what I had felt in Faulkner.
Márquez, Gabriel García and Peter H. Stone (Interviewer). The Art of Fiction. No. 69, 1981.

Your Track Record is The Judge:

What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

Traveling

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Culture Wars

A culture war (or culture wars) is a struggle between two sets of conflicting cultural values.

In American usage the term culture war is used to claim that there is a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal. The "culture war" used in this way is sometimes traced to the 1960s and has taken various forms since then.

Tampering with Language

No one gets angry at a mathematician or a physicist whom he or she doesn't understand, or at someone who speaks a foreign language, but rather at someone who tampers with your own language.
-Derrida

...either liberal or conservative

@Billmaher Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.--
Kurt Vonnegut