“Soulmates are people

who bring out the best in you.
They are not perfect
but are perfect for you.” 

WAR is a racket.

It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest,

easily the most profitable,

surely the most vicious.

It is the only one

international in scope.

It is the only one

in which the profits

are reckoned in dollars

and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described,

I believe,

as something that is not

what it seems

to the majority of the people.

Only a small "inside" group

knows what it is about.

It is conducted

for the benefit

of the very few,

at the expense

of the very many.

Out of war

a few people

make huge fortunes.

(Smedley D. Butler)

(art by Otto Dix)

Show me a man

anywhere in the whole wide world

who knows and loves clouds

more than I!

Or show me anything 

more beautiful.

They are a plaything

and comfort to the eye,

a blessing and a gift of God;

they also contain wrath

and the power of death.

They are as delicate, soft,

and gentle as the souls

of newborn babes,

as beautiful, rich,

and prodigal as good angels,

yet somber, inescapable,

and merciless

as the emissaries of death.

They hover as a silvery film,

and sail past smiling and gold-edged;

they hang poised,

tinged yellow, red, and blue.

Darkly, slowly they slink past

like murderers,

roaring head-over-heels

like mad horsemen,

drooping sadly and dreamily

in the pale heights

like melancholy hermits.

They assume the shapes

of blessed isles

and guardian angels,

resemble threatening hands,

fluttering sails,

migrating cranes.

They hover between God's heaven

and the poor earth

like beautiful likenesses

of man's every yearning

and partake of both realms-dreams

of the earth

in which the sullied soul cleaves

to the pure heaven above.

They are the eternal symbol

of all voyaging,

of every quest and yearning for home. 

And as the clouds

are suspended faintheartedly

and longingly and stubbornly

between heaven and earth,

the souls of men are suspended

faintheartedly and longingly

and stubbornly

between time and eternity.

O lovely, floating, restless clouds!

I was an ignorant child

and loved them, watched them ,

little knowing

that I would drift through life

like a cloud-voyaging,

everywhere a stranger,

hovering between time and eternity.

Ever since childhood

they have been

my dear friends and sisters .

There is not a street I cross

without our nodding

and greeting each other.

Nor did I ever forget

what they taught me then:

their shapes, their features,

their games,

their roundelays and dances,

their repose,

and their strange stories

in which elements of

heaven and earth mingled.

(Hermann Hesse - Peter Camenzind)

Thereafter,

would that I were not

among the men

of the fifth generation,

but either had died before

or been born afterwards.

For now truly is a race of iron,

and men never rest

from labour and sorrow by day,

and from perishing by night;

and the gods shall

lay sore trouble upon them.

But, notwithstanding,

even these shall have some good mingled

with their evils.

And Zeus will destroy this race

of mortal men also when they come to

have grey hair on the temples at their birth.

The father will not agree with his children,

nor the children with their father,

nor guest with his host,

nor comrade with comrade;

nor will brother be dear to brother

as a foretime.

Men will dishonour their parents

as they grow quickly old,

and will carp at them,

chiding them with bitter words,

hard-hearted they,

not knowing the fear of the gods.

They will not repay

their aged parents

the cost their nurture,

for might shall be their right:

and one man

will sack another's city.

There will be no favour

for the man who keeps his oath

or for the just or for the good;

but rather men will praise

the evil-doer

and his violent dealing.

Strength will be right and

reverence will cease to be;

and the wicked

will hurt the worthy man,

speaking false words against him,

and will swear an oath upon them.

Envy, foul-mouthed,

delighting in evil,

with scowling face,

will go along

with wretched men

one and all.

(©la---mer)

And then Aidos and Nemesis,

with their sweet forms

wrapped in white robes,

will go from the wide-pathed earth

and forsake mankind to join

the company of the deathless gods:

and bitter sorrows

will be left for mortal men,

and there will be no help against evil.

(Hesiod – Works nad Days)