When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.
Socrates
Why photograph war? Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior, which has existed throughout human history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance yet that very idea has motivated me. For me the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war, and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war. In a way, if an individual assumes the risk of placing himself in the middle of a war in order to communicate to the rest of the world what is happening, he is trying to negotiate for peace. Perhaps that is the reason why those in charge of perpetuating a war do not like to have photographers around. In the field, where your experience is extremely immediate, what you see is not an image on a page in a magazine 10,000 miles away with an advertisement for Rolex watches on the next page. What you see is unmitigated pain, injustice, and misery. It’s occurred to me that if everyone could be there just once to see for themselves what white phosphorus does to the face of a child, or what unspeakable pain is caused by the impact of a single bullet, or how a jagged piece of shrapnel can rip someone’s leg off. If everyone could be there to see for themselves the fear and the grief just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worth letting things get to the point where that happens to even one person, let alone thousands. But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there. To show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on. To create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference. To protest and by the strength of that protest, to make others protest.
James Natchwey, War Photographer
We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.
Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge
There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.
Albert Hosteen, The X Files
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she’s half crazy
But that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from china
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
>From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said ‘all men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them’
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.
Now Suzanne takes you hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From salvation army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.
Leonard Cohen
I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
It is slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body.
Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.
Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room; but I have lost the key.
Perhaps I have only mislaid it.
The envious praises me unknowingly.
The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of
Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
I said to Life, I would hear Death speak. And Life raised her
voice a little higher and said, You hear him now.
For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?
And when the Earth has claimed our limbs, Then we shall truly dance.
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking
Khalil Gibran
I decided to stand openly, alone, on the theater of the world, to bear witness to the sober truth. I believe that good philosophers, like eagles, fly alone, not in flocks like starlings. I wanted people to understand that Nature not only gave them eyes to see her works, but brains to make them capable of understanding them.
Galileo Galilei
Destiny is a feeling that you know something about yourself nobody else does. the picture you have in your mind of what you’re about will come true. it’s a kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self, because it’s a fragile feeling, and you put it out there, then someone will kill it. It’s best to keep that all inside.
Bob Dylan, December 5, 2004