Philosophers

"If we bring Kant and Wittgenstein together the end of the world is not an event, for it is not an event in the world."

"unless we, as everyone, everywhere, understand that this world is the cobelonging equally of everyone in sharing the mysterious but absolute certainty of its persistence, and create political concepts and new institutions, this ship might become either too small or too large to set sail ever again."

"Nietzsche had warned that the state of tension which makes a thing discharge force must not be mistaken for its “willing”. What we experience as exceptions are the world’s political order in stasis, discharging forces."

"[T]hinking, thinking and thinking. My heart not feeling that which my mind thought, nor my mind ceasing to dominate my soul, and every thought like a hard block of lumber."

"Aristotle makes it clear that the slave can only obey or follow orders, but cannot reason his own syllogism. The master reasons and the slave does. For that reason, it is difficult to imagine the slave after working hours except as an animal: resting, eating, roaming around, copulating. But these are not human acts when performed by the after-hours slave since they are not acts that are the end of practical syllogisms and only these are open to the kind of evaluation that Aristotle offers when he talks of practical wisdom and moral virtue."

"Anger has been excluded from the dominant group's profile of subordinates. When one gets angry, according to Spelman, one regards the person whose conduct one assesses as one's equal. So, we can understand why anger has been excluded from the personality profile of the subordinate. In excluding anger from their personality profile, dominant groups exclude subordinates from the category of moral agents, since to be angry is to make oneself a judge and to express a standard against which one assesses the person's conduct, both of which are marks of a moral agent. In becoming angry, subordinates signal that they take themselves seriously; they believe they have the capacity as well as the right to be judges of those around them."

"Freedom means the possibility to choose from a set of unfree options."

"The ultimate argument that legalizes a moral ideal as a true (or true illusion) is power."

"That, what we cannot describe mathematically cannot have a recognizable existence."

"What exists mathematically has the potentiality of existence."

"A specific being is moving in time, and is always changeable over time, if this theorem is true, then, each one is composed of a set of its potentials."

"No being can be excluded from causal action."

"If you do not know your heart, you do not know your God."

"Human truth is something that is not. The truth is just a consensus on which to agree."

"You live to realize your best self. You live to create something better than you."

"Fidelity is not a reason for dulling attention."

"Freedom is the ability to be themselves relative to each other and to the world."

"From my point of view, each of them (poetry, mathematics, and philosophy) speaks of the same epistemic thing in their own language. Of course, mathematics cannot talk about ontology or metaphysics. Just as philosophy cannot speak of irrational rationality as poetry can."

"Faith is something I can talk about for hours, but I don't give it to you."

"Once you have the view, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear, it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time."

"If your mind is constantly preoccupied by your money and possessions, you are in reality only preparing the ground for rebirth as a spirit tortured by hunger and thirst. If your thoughts are obsessed with your family and loved ones, you are only strengthening the pangs of separation you will suffer when you die."

"To have devotion constantly in your mind will endow you with lasting serenity and satisfaction. Remembering even the name of your spiritual teacher is enough to completely transform your perceptions. Visualizing the guru above the crown of your head, even for an instant, can dissipate the veils of illusion."

"I give you my greeting and my full and unconditional submission to the greatest living Marxist-Leninist-Maoist on earth: our beloved and respected President Gonzalo, chief and guide of the Peruvian revolution and the world proletarian revolution, teacher of Communists and party unifier. I give you my greeting and full and unconditional submission to the scientific ideology of the proletariat" Marxist-Leninist-Maoist and Gonzalo Thought, especially Gonzalo Thought, all-powerful and infallible ideology that illuminates our path and arms our minds."

"Devotion is the ring that allows the hook of the teacher’s compassion to pull you out of the mire of samsara."

"When Abimael Guzman referred to the "bloodbath" in 1988, the insurrection's history was already strained by it. The proverbial meat grinder had processed enough people to make the Shining Path uprising one of Latin America's bloodiest since the 1960's, with clear signs of becomeing one of the cruelest wars in the continent's history."

"Even if death were to fall upon you today like lightning, you must be ready to die without sadness and regret, without any residue of clinging for what is left behind. Remaining in the recognition of the absolute view, you should leave this life like an eagle soaring up into the blue sky...."

"Fear? I believe that fear and lack of fear form a contradiction. The point is to take up our ideology, and unleash the courage within us. It is our ideology that makes us brave, that gives us courage. In my opinion, no one is born brave. It is society, the class struggle, that makes people and communists courageous--the class struggle, the proletariat, the Party, and our ideology."

"They will send their sinister army armed to the teeth to fight us, assaulting the working class, the peasants and popular masses, spreading their sinister claws. They will try to encircle, isolate, crush and wipe us out. But we are the future, the strength, and history. Comrades, revolution and counterrevolution are also contending forces in our country. They are two parts of a unity of opposites in constant struggle. The reactionaries are armed and concentrated, defending the metropolis and capitals. We are rooted in the countryside, in small villages, with the masses, especially with the poor peasants, with the force of the people, among their disorganized force in order to organize it into a powerful army. But this will not be easy."

"The new is focused in our country, the armed solution, and the Party’s development through arms intensifies through the armed struggle."

"I believe that I've got an almost built-in optimism. And I occupy myself more with problems of understanding and conviction than with problems of feelings or depression. On the contrary, I think that I am quite optimistic. It is Marxism, Chairman Mao, who has made us understand that people, especially communists, are optimists. Whenever I find myself in a difficult situation I strive to look for its positive aspect or for what potential for development may stillexist within that situation, because nothing is completely black, nor is anything completely red. Even if there were to be a big defeat, even though we have not had one yet, there would always be a positive aspect. The point is to draw out the lessons, and continue to do our work based on the positive aspect. You will always find someone to support you, to lend their ardent enthusiasm and assistance to the struggle, because communism unites people."

"The Party is a system of organizations and obviously has its necessities. The formation of an army that is numerically much larger, more vast, also has its necessities. Marxism, and especially Chairman Mao, has taught us how to resolve this problem, too. The CPC, based on Chairman Mao Tsetung's teachings, concluded that giving economic aid to parties was corrosive, and that it was a revisionist policy, because a Party must be self-reliant. This is what we have followed: self-reliance. Self-reliance has to do with economic necessities, but mainly, as we understand it, it has to do with ideological and political orientation. With that as our starting point we can see how to deal with the economic necessities which are always present--it would be an error to say they don't exist."

"Then, to reiterate, all the struggles waged by the proletariat, the oppressed nations, the peoples of the world, the parties and organizations steadfast and loyal to Marxism--all that struggle is the primary concrete form of proletarian internationalist help. Nevertheless, the greatest assistance we have is undying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the ideology of the international proletariat, which has been generated by the working class through long decades and thousands of struggles all over the world. This is the greatest assistance we receive because it is the light, without which our eyes would see nothing. But with this light our eyes can see and our hands can act. This is how we see this problem, and this is how we advance."

"Gonzalo appeared not only as the interpreter of the laws of history but also as the military leader unreachable by the repressive apparatus of the “old State.” He was every where and no where."

"With regard to violence we start from the principle established by Chairman Mao Tsetung: violence, that is the need for revolutionary violence, is a universal law with no exception. Revolutionary violence is what allows us to resolve fundamental contradictions by means of an army, through people's war."

"Revisionism arose as a complete negation of Marxism. Modern revisionism, likewise, is always aiming to substitute bourgeois philosophy for Marxist philosophy, going against political economy, particularly denying the growing impoverishment and the inevitability of the downfall of imperialism. Revisionism strives to falsify and twist scientific socialism in order to oppose the class struggle and revolution, peddling parliamentary cretinism and pacifism. All these positions have been expounded by the revisionists, who have aimed for and continue to aim for the restoration of capitalism, the undermining and blocking of the world revolution, and to denigrate the conquering spirit of our class. But here I feel it is necessary to spell out some points to make this concrete: revisionism behaves like any imperialism. For example, the Soviet Union, Soviet social-imperialism, preaches and practices parliamentary cretinism. It mounts and conducts armed actions for the purpose of gaining world hegemony. It carries out aggression, pits one people against another, sets masses against masses, and divides our class and the people. In a thousand and one ways Soviet revisionism fights against everything that is truly Marxist and everything that serves the revolution. We are an example of how they do this. The social-imperialists of the USSR have developed a perverse worldwide plan to become a hegemonic superpower using all the means at their disposal. This includes setting up phony parties, communist in name only, "bourgeois workers parties" to use Engels' words. And this is how Chinese revisionism and all revisionists act, differing only with regard to their particular circumstances, according to who pulls their strings."

"Among the masses, what revisionism does is serve the cause of capitulation to internal reaction, concretely to the big bourgeoisie and the landlords, to the landlord-bureaucrat capitalist dictatorship which is the Peruvian State of today."

"I want to make it absolutely clear that we respect this religiousness as a question of freedom of religious beliefs, as recognized by the programme which was approved by our Congress."

"Marxism has always taught us that the problem lies in the application of universal truth. Chairman Mao Tsetung was extremely insistent on this point, that if Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is not applied to concrete reality, it is not possible to lead a revolution, not possible to transform the old order, destroy it, or create a new one. It is the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the Peruvian revolution that has produced Gonzalo Thought. Gonzalo Thought has been forged in the class struggle of our people, mainly the proletariat, in the incessant struggles of the peasantry, and in the larger framework of the world revolution, in the midst of these earthshaking battles, applying as faithfully as possible the universal truths to the concrete conditions of our country. Previously we called it the Guiding Thought. And if today the Party, through its Congress, has sanctioned the term Gonzalo Thought, it's because a leap has been made in the Guiding Thought through the development of the people's war. In sum, Gonzalo Thought is none other than the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to our concrete reality. This means that it is principal specifically for our Party, for the people's war and for the revolution in our country, and I want to emphasize that. But for us, looking at our ideology in universal terms, I emphasize once again, it is Maoism that is principal."

"When death finally comes you will welcome it like an old friend, aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the whole phenomenal world really is."

"Our chief is Gonzalo he of brilliant thought and action inspired by Marx, Lenin and Mao he develops our powerful ideology and brings to a burning world the invincible people's war."

"Marxism has taught us to separate Church and State, this is the first thing we will do. Secondly, I want to repeat, we respect the freedom of religious belief of the people--applying fully the principle of freedom to believe, as well as not to believe. to be an atheist. That is how we will handle it."

"Never forget how swiftly this life will be over, like a flash of summer lightning or the wave of a hand. Now that you have the opportunity to practice dharma, do not waste a single moment on anything else."

"As time goes on, it will become obvious through your practice of the Dharma that hatred toward anyone is a mistake. You will have nothing but good thoughts and intentions toward all beings. So, too, the pointlessness of becoming attached to anyone and anything will also become obvious, and you will see that all objects of attachment are like things perceived in dreams, like phantasmagoric illusions."

"Thirty-six hours after his teacher’s last breath, Trulshik Rinpoche decided that Khyentse Rinpoche’s last meditation was completed, and his body... was enshrined and carried in procession... to the main temple of Thimphu Dzong, where everyone, from the king and the royal family to the most humble people, came and paid homage. Within hours, and day after day, many masters from all schools converged in Bhutan to pay homage. At the request of disciples from Tibet and all over the world, so that they could come to pay a last homage to their teacher, Khyentse Rinpoche’s body was preserved for a year using traditional embalming methods. Every Friday (the day of his death) for the first seven weeks, one hundred thousand butter lamps were offered at the Bodhnath stupa near Shechen Monastery in Nepal. Finally, his remains were cremated near Paro in Bhutan, in November 1992, at a three-day ceremony attended by over a hundred important lamas, the royal family and ministers of Bhutan, five hundred Western disciples and a huge crowd of some sixty thousand devotees..."

"As it is said: Go hundreds of miles away From places of dispute; Don't stay for an instant Where disturbing emotions prevail."

"In my native land waves of attachment to friends and kin surge, Hatred for enemies rages like fire, The darkness of stupidity, not caring what to adopt or avoid, thickens - To abandon my native land is the practice of a bodhisattva"

"The meaning of leaving behind your native land is to leave behind the emotions of attachment, hatred, and the obscuring ignorance that permeates both. These three poisons, generally speaking, are most active in the relationships you establish with family and friends in your own homeland. There, it is all too easy for the protection of those to whom you are attached, and the increasing of their wealth and happiness, to become your main preoccupation... you end up engaging in meaningless activities without end, frittering away what is left of your precious life... Not to see how pointless it would be to waste your life with such goals is simply ignorance."

"So, rather than stay near the people and things that are liable to arouse your attachment and resentment, go to a completely unknown place where there is nothing that will engender negative emotions. Your mind will not be disturbed, and you will be able to devote your time and energy to the practice of Dharma."

"Being communists, we fear nothing."

"Let us start by saying that the Communist Party of Peru, which has been leading the people's war for more than eight years now, has expressed itself publicly in a number of different documents. We have always considered the pronouncements of the Party itself to be much more important, because that way it is crystal clear that it is the PCP that has dared to initiate the people's war, lead it, and carry it forward."