The honest philosopher is rewarded with poison; the hypocrite is rewarded with power.

When you are asked, "Where is God? Who is God?" stand up and say, "I am God and here is God, not as yet completed, but still advancing towards completion, just in so much as I am working for the purpose of the universe, working for the good of the whole of society and the whole world, instead of merely looking after my personal ends."

God appears, and God is light,
to those poor souls who well in night,
but does a human form display,
to those who dwell in realms of day.

It's not right to make fun of Melville's comically absurd inability to take decent pictures.
She's a hyper-advanced humanoid machine, not a photographer.

Straton wrote that the most common error we commit is to think that ideas determine reality, when in fact the opposite is true. Ideas follow from material conditions; belief systems are formed to explain and justify the way we live. We did not have kings because we believed in the mandate of heaven; we believed in the mandate of heaven because we lived in monarchies.