Commoners Quotes

“Emperor, king, general, duke,” he whispered to himself. “These are just labels. Climb up the family tree of any of them high enough and you’ll find a commoner who dared to take a chance.”

“For any ranked society, whether a chiefdom or a state, one thus has to ask, why do the commoners tolerate the transfer of the fruits of their hard labor to kleptocrats? This question raised by political theorists from Plato to Marx are raised anew by voters in every modern election. Kleptocracies with little public support run the risk of being overthrown, either by downtrodden commoners, or by upstart would be replacement kleptocrats seeking public support by promising a higher ratio of services rendered to fruits stolen.”

“Reality is not what we see on the social media. Reality is something that is kept inside several veils, essentially and preciously hidden from us commoners. Social media is created to make us believe that we can create our own reality - ‘Go Play”

“Have you ever taken time to think about the commoners who are slaughtered in wars? Any war! Those who didn’t want the war, those who couldn’t say no, even those who have no voice. Why would another man have the power to declare war on behalf of anyone? Why should people be made to die by the mere fact that someone somewhere decides that the answer to a problem is war? Call me a coward, but war is not an answer to any question.”

“It was to remind me how lucky we are that the beggar was placed in my path. You see, some people live all their lives without knowing which path is right. They're buffeted by this wind or that and never really know where they're going. That's largely the fate of commoners-those who have no choice over their destiny.For those of us born as samurai, life is something else. We know the path of duty and we follow it without question. But even that may not be easy because there may be insurmountable obstacles. Such as what that blind beggar faces. He might have a secret dream of revenge against an oppressor too. He might have justice on his side as we do now, but there is nothing he can do about it. I say we're lucky-we know what has to be done and it's within out capability to make it happen!…Remember, there's sacrifice involved in any kind of life. Even the man who chooses the safe way has to give up the thrill of combat. The point is that once you know what you want, you must be prepared to sacrifice everything to get it. Those who realize this are the fortunate ones. Those who know and can try. What more can a man ask for than that?”

“Have you ever been to the beach and wanted to feed the seagulls? The problem is you tear off a little crust from your sandwich and toss it to one, and ten more show up. Toss a little more and a flock descends. You start to wonder: if I run out of bread, will I become the meal?Turkeys are different. They startle easily and run for the barn. In the wild, they run for the hills. Of course, they’re very tasty. Benjamin Franklin thought them majestic enough to be an emblem for our country. I’m sorry, but Thanksgiving would be downright depressing. There’s our national symbol lying stuffed and roasted and ready to carve up for hungry guests. And then we have the eagles. Our forefathers were trained in the Bible. […]They would have known Isaiah 40:31. “Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” They were making war on the greatest power in the world of the time; the world was watching them. What could this band of commoners do? What troubles me about our country today is how many seagulls there are, scrambling for more. Remember the movie “Finding Nemo”? “Mine, mine, mine!” And we sure have a lot of gutless turkeys running for the barn whenever hard decisions have to be made; like how to keep our country solvent so our children won’t be in soup lines… Where are the eagles? That’s what I want to know. Please, God, we need us some eagles!”