new fortunes

diff --git a/infobase/fortunes.dat b/infobase/fortunes.dat
index f5848fe8cbfc72302730b1fb0d4f4785d8495249..332f19ecd4768ddb0cb6bb33c227eccb5db564a5 100644 (file)
--- a/infobase/fortunes.dat
+++ b/infobase/fortunes.dat
@@ -41592,4 +41592,78 @@ Compassionate Life", published by Shambhala Publications.
 Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why
 people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
   -- Walter Bagehot
+~
+    In reality, nothing can save us from a state of chaos or confusion unless
+we have acknowledged it and actually experienced it.  Otherwise, even though
+we may be in the midst of chaos, we don’t even notice it, although we are
+subject to it.  On the path of meditation, the first real glimpse of our
+confusion and the general chaos is when we begin to feel uncomfortable.  We
+feel that something is a nuisance.  Something is bugging us constantly.
+    What is that?  Eventually we discover that we are the nuisance.  We begin
+to see ourselves being a nuisance to ourselves when we uncover all kinds of
+thought problems, emotional hang-ups, and physical problems in meditation.
+Before we work with anyone else, we have to deal with being a nuisance to
+ourselves.  We have to pull ourselves together.  We might get angry with
+ourselves, saying, "I could do better than this.  What’s wrong with me?  I
+seem to be getting worse.  I’m going backward."  We might get angry with
+the whole world, including ourselves.  Everything, the entire universe,
+becomes the expression of total insult.  We have to relate to that experience
+rather than rejecting it.  If you hope to be helpful to others, first you have
+to work with yourself.
+  -- Chögyam Trungpa, from "Mindfulness in Action", published by Shambhala
+     Publications
+~
+If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered
+as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded,
+that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers
+against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious
+persecution.
+  -- George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia (1789)
+~
+Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one,
+he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
+  -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr (1787)
+~
+In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof
+is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by
+precept and example inculcated on mankind.
+  -- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1771)
+~
+Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the
+strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.  Take away the
+law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.
+  -- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791)
+~
+Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.
+  -- Roger Sherman, Congress (1789)
+~
+The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
+  -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)
+~
+I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people
+build a wall of separation between Church & State.
+  -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)
+~
+To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering
+medicine to the dead.
+  -- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis No.  V (1776)
+~
+Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than
+our opinions in physics or geometry.
+  -- Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)
+~
+Christian establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which
+facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.
+  -- James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr.  (1774)
+~
+There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of
+science and literature.  Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of
+public happiness.
+  -- George Washington, address to Congress (1790)
+~
+During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
+been on trial.  What has been its fruits?  More or less, in all places, pride
+and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both,
+superstition, bigotry and persecution.
+  -- James Madison, General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1785)