atheists

"We should develop the most urgently needed new types of weapons and equipment as soon as possible. The development of modern science and technology has enormously expanded the destructive force of weapons. In future wars against aggression, we should still stress the decisive role of man but under no circumstances should we neglect the important role of weapons. Without advanced weapons and equipment, we shall pay a higher price and prolong the time for winning the war. We should make the best use of our time and strive to change the backwardness of our weapons and equipment. In the new historical period, the central task of our party is to lead the people in carrying out socialist construction. The modernization of our army must be suited to the development of the national economy. We have a large population, a poor foundation, and limited funds. Therefore, we should not incur huge military expenditures as the superpowers do. Nor should we blindly pursue large-scale and rapid modernization of the army regardless of our national economic conditions. In developing weapons and equipment, we should make overall arrangements and scientific planning."

"Now we are carrying out the new struggle of building a modernized army with special Chinese characteristics. Many of our veteran comrades have made their contributions to the life-and-death struggles."

"If we are divorced from the realities in our country, even though we are armed with new weapons and equipment, these weapons and equipment will be mere show and will not form any real combat strength. In order to build a modern army with special Chinese characteristics, we should proceed from the realities in our country and in our army, put forth clear and definite guidelines and requirements of principle on the orientation of development and the basic content of modernization, and formulate plans for various periods. In so doing, we should rely on the exploration and creativity in the practice of the masses."

"First of all, I fully support the report and the various demands that Comrade Li Peng has made on behalf of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. Beijing of late is actually in an anarchistic state. Basically, the work of government organs, classes in schools, transportation, industry, and so forth have all been thrown into a confused state. This confused state is, in reality, a state of anarchy. Comrade Li Peng has just said that with regard to such a historic event as the Sino-Soviet talks, we could not hold the welcoming ceremony at Tiananmen. The location was changed to the airport at the last moment. Several discussions that should have been held at the Great Hall of the People were compelled to take place at Diaoyutai Guest House. In addition, some activities previously scheduled were canceled. Such a state of affairs...."

"Judging from the existing conditions, a modernized and regular revolutionary army with special Chinese characteristics should be one which conforms to our national conditions, which flexibly integrates advanced military thinking and fine traditions with modern weapons and equipment and competent military personnel, and which possesses the capacity to defend itself in modern warfare; in other words, a developed people's army with the tradition of people's war plus modern military science, weapons, and equipment."

"For many historical reasons, most of our troop cadres, and particularly high-ranking cadres, are now advanced in years, and they do not have a sufficient knowledge of culture and science or of modern military science. In the past year, we have readjusted leading groups of the army units in line with the principle of promoting outstanding younger cadres and helped PIA men learn science and acquire general knowledge extensively and thoroughly. As a result, the ranks of our army's cadres have made big strides in the four modernizations, yet they still cannot meet the needs of army building."

"That is to say that the PLA troops are compelled to enter the capital in order to restore the normal order in Beijing, maintain public security, and prevent important government organizations from being affected or stormed. I would like to explain this point clearly to all those who are present here. The PLA troops' arrival is definitely not aimed at dealing with the students. It is hoped that all trades and professions, people in various circles, and particularly people of the various democratic parties will support the PLA troops for their action to safeguard the capital and maintain public security. I hope that you will give them your full understanding and support. This is the point that I wanted to explain to you comrades here. I have nothing else to say. That is all."

"The arrival of PLA troops in the vicinity of Beijing is definitely not aimed at dealing with students. They have not come here to deal with the students. Their aim is to restore the normal order of production, of life, of work in Beijing Municipality. At the same time, they aim to protect a number of important departments and major government organs. Therefore, the stationing of the PLA troops in the capital is aimed at maintaining public security. They are, by no means, directed at the students. Everyone will be able to clearly see their activities in the next few days [applause]."

"We should continue to tap this potential and at the same time integrate it satisfactorily with mass technological innovation. The masses are the operators of weapons and equipment. It often happens that a small invention can solve a big problem. We stress the main points and self-reliance, but under no circumstances should we comprehend "distinguishing Chinese characteristics and "low standards" and thus lower the objective of our modernization. At present the modernization level of our troops is not very high, but it should be noted that the development of the national economy in the past few years has been gratifying. According to the Marxist theory of economic strength being the material basis of force, it can be expected that with the development of the national economy, encouraging prospects will certainly emerge in the modernization of the army."

"Following the high automation of operational command and weapons control, the command organizations should be highly efficient and be able to make quick responses. If the organizations are overstaffed and unwieldy, they will not easily deploy them, still less to direct operations. In order to increase our combat strength, we should increase the work efficiency of our troops, streamline organizations, and simplify the administrative structure so that they can be highly trained and flexible. We should abolish some units which should be abolished and amalgamate those which should be amalgamated. Naturally, it is also necessary to establish new units which should be established according to the requirements of modern warfare. The most important thing in the scientific organization of the forces is to strengthen the combination of the forces."

"Despite his growing importance as Deng's right-hand man, however, he failed to make much of an impression on ordinary Chinese. Many, particularly intellectuals mocked his foppish dress, his jovial, often coarse manner, and reputation as an ageing playboy. For many he was a buffoon, a powerful one but hardly a man of weight. Then, in June 1989, the joking stopped. Overnight, Yang Shangkun became perhaps the most hated man in China. He had performed the ultimate act of loyalty - when Deng said open fire he obeyed."

"The life of Yang Shangkun "was glorious and militant" and he made "historic and indelible contributions to the Chinese people's cause of liberation and the cause of socialist revolution and construction."

"The modernization of an army is closely related to the political system, economic strength, military strategy, and scientific and technological level of a state. The orientation and path of its building and the focal point of its development are particularly restricted by the politics, tactics, and military strategy of the state, the combat tasks shouldered by the armed forces in future wars, and the conditions on the battlefields. The conditions in our country and in our army differ from those in other countries; therefore, in modernizing our army, we cannot copy the patterns of other countries, but must adhere to a "Chinese pattern," adapt our- selves to China's national conditions, and have our own special characteristics. We will always lag behind others if we copy other people in modernizing our army."

"For centuries, women have been raped in every war. It's even a pleasant activity, sometimes I would rape if I caught up. But my leg, my knee hurts."

"Really I don't have time to end this poem who has time now to write poems"

"How good I am with you my heart is beating so much I thought human has no heart."

"forget about us don't ask about our youth leave us"

"Don't keep your hands under the covers, it's ugly and unhealthy."

"I don't believe in turning water into wine I don't believe in forgiveness of sins I don't believe in bodily resurrection."

"These are empty and unambiguous names: man and animal love and hate enemy and friend darkness and light."

"I am twenty-four led to slaughter I survived."

"A rose is a flower or the name of a dead girl. You can place a rose in a warm hand or in the black earth. The red rose screams the golden-haired girl left in silence."

"I have been writing for a very long time I suddenly noticed that I don't have a pen in my hand"

"I was lying on the bed fully clothed and thinking about the fact that there were various pieces of furniture, books, and pictures hanging here, but it all made no sense. I'm lying here too and I don't make sense either."

"A human being is killed like an animal I saw: vans of crazy people who will not be saved."

"You don't necessarily have to be a god to have followers."

"Now come, mouths! No, I am not saying goodbye to you, strange and unknown faces of strangers, unknown men who will read me, I welcome you, I welcome you, graceful bundles of body parts, now let it begin - come and join me, start your smooching, give me a new face, so that I will have to run away from you again into other people and run, run, run through all of humanity. For there is no escape from a mouth except into another mouth, and the only way to escape from a man is into the embrace of another. There is no escape from the butt at all. Chase me if you want. I run away with my mouth in my hands."

"It's the end, what a gas, And who's read it is an ass!"

"What's worse, the forest was green."

"Why does Słowacki arouse admiration and love in us? (…) Because, gentlemen, Słowacki was a great poet!"

"Without students, there would be no school, and without school, there would be no life!"

"And she sat at dinner, oh, mature in her immaturity, self-confident, indifferent and alone, and I sat for her, for her, for her I sat and I could not for one second not sit for her, I was in her, she contained me in her along with my mockery, her tastes, her tastes were decisive for me and I could please myself only insofar as I pleased her."

"Without students, there would be no school, and without school, there would be no teachers."

"I have never needed God in my life - from my earliest childhood, not even for five minutes - I have always been self-sufficient."

"I demand death homes where everyone would have modern means of easy death at their disposal. Where you could die smoothly, not by throwing yourself in front of a train or hanging yourself on a doorknob. Where a tired, worn-out, finished man could surrender himself to the friendly arms of a specialist so that he could be assured of a death without torture and disgrace. Why not, I ask, why not? Who stops you from civilizing death?"

"Monday - me, Tuesday - me, Wednesday - me, Thursday - me."

"And, indeed, has not nature given, to almost every creature, the same spontaneous signs of the various affections? Admire we not in other animals whatever is most eloquent in man, the tremor of desire, the tear of distress, the piercing cry of anguish, the pity-pleading look, expressions that speak the soul with a feeling which words are feeble to convey?"

"Disgusted with continual scenes of slaughter and desolation, pierced by the incessant shrieks of suffering innocence, and, shocked by the shouts of persecuting brutality, the humane mind averts abhorrent from the view, and, turning her eyes to Hindostan, dwells with heart-felt consolation on the happy spot, where mercy protects with her right hand the streams of life, and every animal is allowed to enjoy in peace the portion of bliss which nature prepared it to receive."

"May the benevolent system spread to every corner of the globe; may we learn to recognize and to respect in other animals the feelings which vibrate in ourselves; may we be led to perceive that those cruel repasts are not more injurious to the creatures whom we devour than they are hostile to our health, which delights in innocent simplicity, and destructive of our happiness, which is wounded by every act of violence, while it feeds as it were on the prospect of well-being, and is raised to the highest summit of enjoyment by the sympathetic touch of social satisfaction."

"But here the sons of science sport with the sentiments of mercy; and why, with a malicious grin, demands the modern sophist, why then is man furnished with the canine, or dog-teeth, except that nature meant him carnivorous?—Fallacious argument! Is the fitness of an action to be determined purely by the physical capacity of the agent? Because nature, kindly provident, has bestowed upon us a superabundance of animal vigour, does it follow that we ought to abuse, by habitual exertions, an excess of force, evidently granted to guard our existence on occasions of dire distress? In cases of extreme famine we destroy and devour each other; but from thence will any one pretend to prove, that man was made to feed upon his fellow men?"

"At all events, the pleasing persuasion that his work may have contributed to mitigate the ferocities of prejudice, and to diminish in some degree the great mass of misery which oppresses the animal world, will in the hour of distress convey to the Author's heart a consolation which the tooth of calumny will not be able to impoison."

"But far other is the fate of animals: for, alas! when they are plucked from the tree of Life, suddenly the withered blossoms of their beauty shrink to the chilly hand of Death. Quenched in his cold cold grasp expires the lamp of their loveliness, and struck by the livid blast of loathed putrefaction, their comely limbs are involved in ghastly horror. Shall we leave the living herbs to seek, in the den of death, an obscene aliment?—Insensible to the blooming beauties of Pomona, unallured by the fragrant fume that exhale from her groves of golden fruits, unmoved by the nectar of Nature, by the ambrosia of innocence, shall the voracious vultures of our impure appetite speed across the lovely scenes and alight in the loathsome sink of putrefaction to devour the funeral of other creatures, to load with cadaverous rottenness, a wretched stomach?"

"Fatigued with answering the enquiries, and replying to the objections of his friends, with respect to the singularity of his mode of life, the Author of this performance conceived that he might consult his ease by making, once for all, a public apology for his opinions. Those who despise the weakness of his arguments will nevertheless learn to admit the innocence of his tenets, and suffer him to pursue, without molestation, a system of life that is more the result of sentiment than of reason, in a man who imagines that the human race were not made to live scientifically, but according to nature."

"The Author is very far from entertaining a presumption that his slender labours (crude and imperfect as they are now hurried to the press) will ever operate an effect on the public mind—and yet, when he considers the natural bias of the human heart to the side of mercy, and observes on all hands the barbarous governments of Europe giving way to a better system of things, he is inclined to hope that the day is beginning to approach when the growing sentiment of peace and good-will towards men will also embrace, in a wide circle of benevolence, the lower orders of life."

"Ye sons of modern science, who court not wisdom in her walks of silent meditation in the grove, who behold her not in the living loveliness of her works, but expect to meet her in the midst of obscenity and corruption; ye who dig for knowledge in the depth of the dunghill, and who hope to discover wisdom enthroned amid the fragments of mortality, and the abhorrence of the senses; ye that with ruffian violence interrogate trembling nature, who plunge into her maternal bosom the butcher knife, and, in quest of your nefarious science, the fibres of agonizing animals, delight to scrutinize; ye dare also to violate the human form august; and, holding up the entrails of man, ye exclaim: behold the bowels of a carnivorous animal!—Barbarians! to these very bowels I appeal against your cruel dogmas; to these bowels, fraught with mercy, and entwined with compassion; to these bowels which nature hath sanctified to the sentiments of pity and of gratitude; to the yearnings of kindred, to the melting tenderness of love!"

"The butcher's knife hath laid low the delight of a fond dam, & the darling of Nature is now stretched in gore upon the ground."

"“Either God is love or he is not. If he is love, he cannot punish his creatures just for not believing in him.”"

"“To exist, religions need religious freedom, but religious freedom can exist only where what religions fight against is permitted: disbelief. After all, believers too are disbelievers: they disbelieve other religions. Religions combating disbelief is, therefore, schizophrenia and self-destruction. Instead of threatening them with Hell and trying to convert them, Christians should thank God for the existence of skeptics, doubters, disbelievers, infidels, blasphemers and atheists.”"

"“I find it extremely unlikely that God exists. Yet, if he does exist, let him exist! So what? If God exists, it’s not necessary to believe in him, and if he doesn’t, much less.”"

"“If life on Earth is evidence of God’s existence, the absence of life on seven planets and five dwarf planets wins 12 to 1 as evidence of his nonexistence.”"