John (Fire) Lame Deer · 352 pages
Rating: (1.5K votes)
“Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a an was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were to uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man's worth couldn't be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn't cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white men came, and I don't know how we managed to get along without these basic things which, we are told, are absolutly necessary to make a civilized society.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“All Creatures exist for a purpose. Even an ant knows what that purpose is--not with its brain, but somehow it knows. Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“If this earth should ever be destroyed, it will be by desire, by the lust of pleasure and self-gratification, by greed of the green frog skin, by people who are mindful of their own self, forgetting about the wants of others.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don’t touch,
but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as to our relatives.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“We make bear sounds, talk bear language when we are in a fighting mood. "Harrnh"--and you are as good as gone.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer, quote from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
“Noting the lack of crime or security in the Netherlands, the author asked a native who guarded a national landmark. He got the replay, "We all do.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
“You could say all you liked about reason and logic and common sense and imagination, but when the chips were down the one skill you needed was the ability to think about absolutely nothing whatsoever.”
― Mark Haddon, quote from A Spot of Bother
“Lord. Do not doubt His power.” Only the starets was allowed to address her with such informality. She was the Matushka, Little Mother; her husband, Nicholas II, the Batiushka, Little Father. It was how the peasantry viewed them—as stern parents. Everyone around her said Rasputin was a mere peasant himself. Perhaps so. But he alone could relieve Alexie’s suffering. This peasant from Siberia with his tangled beard, stinking body, and long greasy hair was heaven’s emissary. “God has refused to listen to my prayers, Father. He”
― Steve Berry, quote from The Romanov Prophecy
“Patty: I'll be the good guy.
Shermy: I'll be the bad guy.
Patty: What are you going to be, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: I'll be sort of in-between; I'll be a hypocrite!”
― Charles M. Schulz, quote from The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 1: 1950-1952
“In 2007, Jeffrey Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School and his wife and colleague in obesity research, Terry Maratos-Flier, published an article in Scientific American called “What Fuels Fat.” In it, they described the intimate link between appetite and energy expenditure, making clear that they are not simply variables that an individual can consciously decide to change with the only effect being that his or her fat tissue will get smaller or larger to compensate. An animal whose food is suddenly restricted tends to reduce its energy expenditure both by being less active and by slowing energy use in cells, thereby limiting weight loss. It also experiences increased hunger so that once the restriction ends, it will eat more than its prior norm until the earlier weight is attained. What the Fliers accomplished in just two sentences is to explain why a hundred years of intuitively obvious dietary advice—eat less—doesn’t work in animals. If we restrict the amount of food an animal can eat (we can’t just tell it to eat less, we have to give it no choice), not only does it get hungry, but it actually expends less energy. Its metabolic rate slows down. Its cells burn less energy (because they have less energy to burn). And when it gets a chance to eat as much as it wants, it gains the weight right back. The”
― quote from Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
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