Federico Garcia Lorca Quotes

The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.

People are very open-minded about new things - as long as they're exactly like the old ones.

Being quiet is comfortable. Keeping things the way they've been is comfortable. And all comfort has done is maintain the status quo.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that schools are just factories for turning out robots, that's all. They get you when your small and vulnerable and they take all the human parts away, bit by bit, until you're just a wind-up toy. Turn the key and set it running. And the toy goes to university, gets a job, settles down with someone nice.

That just the way it is. Some things will never change. That's just the way it is. But don't you believe them.

We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them. The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen.

most Americans are in deep awe of things-as-they-are. Even with everything this obviously out of control, they still tell themselves that those in authority must know what they are doing, and must be describing our condition to us as it really is; they still take it for granted that somehow what is, what is done, must make sense, can't really be insane. These assumptions exercise a tyranny over their minds.

Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?

We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are.

When things don’t change, their sameness becomes an accretion. That is why all society puts on flesh. Succumbs to the cubicles and begins to fill them.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

Thank you industrialization. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books.

Machine makers always run the risk of becoming totally machine.

When exactly were we brainwashed into believing that the best way to earn a living is to have a job?

For those of us who got into good colleges or the professions, did we stand up to that high school history teacher who told us some ridiculous lie about American history and say, "That's a ridiculous lie. You're an idiot"? No. We said, "All right, I'll keep quiet, and I'll write it in the exam and I'll think, yes, he's an idiot." And it's easy to say and believe things that improve your self-image and your career and that are in other ways beneficial to yourselves.

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies.

A 'why' is a dangerous thing... It challenges old, comfortable ways, forces people to think about that they do instead of just mindlessly doing it. (Haplo) ... I think the danger is not so much in asking the 'why' as in believing you have come up with the only answer. (Alfred)

On solemn asses fall plush sinecures, So keep a straight face and sit tight on yours.

Anything is possible, but you have to believe and you have to fight.

It is undoubtedly easier to believe in absolutes, follow blindly, mouth received wisdom. But that is self-betrayal.

Following the herd is fine, until they all run off the side of a cliff together.

Stop talking about the way things are, unless you like them.

Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, "Why are things the way they are?" Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn't even know the question existed.

The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargical spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit.

There are always a lot of people so afraid of rocking the boat that they stop rowing. We can never get ahead that way.