Notes from a Conference!

* You can always hold our leaders to their words, for they always speak in good faith, right until they act in bad one.

* In our region, if not the world, everyone holds everyone else by the balls, no one is in the habit of keeping one’s hand to oneself, for we perennially covet what our neighbor has, even when he is not so well-endowed.

* Our national disease is that we are all so poor in spirit.

* I see hope as I see life – as a condemnation, a prison sentence, a necessary evil which I have to endure until release comes, be it in the form of death or insanity.

* We have long reached the point where we have to divest ourselves of all leaders, national and religious, and burn the whole lot of them, and not only in effigy. It is about time that our leaders tasted some of the suffering they have been inflicting upon us.

* Moderation is not an ultimate virtue, and should not be embraced as such. There is no ultimate virtue. We are all too lacking, all too human, to dabble with ultimates. But then, perhaps that’s why we are so obsessed with this kind of dabbling.

* Moderation is not a virtue in itself. Nothing is virtuous in itself.

* Moderation is a means towards an end, if it cannot deliver, it should not be embraced.

* Virtue is always utilitarian even when people think and claim that it isn’t.

* You don’t do the right thing because it is the right thing, you do it because you’re getting something out of it, even if only your peace of mind.

* Moderation is often a veil used by the most self-righteous Machiavellian elements among us to hide the true nature of their designs, not to mention their duplicity and their cowardice.

* Under authoritarianism there is no virtue, and moderation is a crime.

* I may not win my freedom or find the desired justice in the here-and-now, but I should start fighting for them and always push for their fulfillment in the here-and-now, otherwise the fight will never begin, and they will ever be fulfilled.

* Freedom and justice temporarily deferred are freedom and justice forever deferred.

* We will never be ready for democracy unless we begin experimenting with it.

* I shall strive to balance between my choice of means and the nature of my desired ends. But I should still keep my options open, and my enemy guessing.

* Sometimes, when the fire is so big and threatening, you have no choice but to fight it with more fire.