Agon Quotes

The "question" is the vaccination against and the cure for ignorance. ~ Ted Agon

Nobody can learn for another. Only we can teach ourselves. ~ Ted Agon

To acquire a new perspective we must change our point of reference. ~ Ted Agon

There is only "now". The better we make now the better our past and future "nows" will be. ~ Ted Agon

Loneliness is a desert. Solitude an oasis. ~ Ted Agon

Any learning process that is not entirely invested in questions is under funded. ~ Ted Agon

To limit questions is to promote ignorance. ~ Ted Agon

Always the following wind of history
Of others' wisdom makes a buoyant air
Till we come suddenly on pockets where
Is nothing loud but us; where voices seem
Abrupt, untrained, competing with no lie
Our fathers shouted once. ~ W. H. Auden

Complexity mumbles. Simplicity speaks ~ Ted Agon

The best thing in life is change. Without change there is no life. ~ Ted Agon

Propaganda - a war of words. Diplomacy - words of peace. ~ Ted Agon

Now all the myths that you have heard and that resonate with you, those are the elements from round about that you are building into a form in your life. The thing worth considering is how they relate to each other in your context, not how they relate to something out there-how they were relevant on the North American prairies or in the Asian jungles hundreds of years agon, but how they are relevant now-unless by contemplating their former meaning you can begin to amplify your own understanding of the role they play in your life. ~ Joseph Campbell

The only faithful tradition is change. ~ Ted Agon

The "question" is the source of human evolution and revolution. ~ Ted Agon

One of the best collaborations is between social and solitude. ~ Ted Agon

Our challenge is making a long-term investment in our children in an instant-gratification society. ~ Ted Agon

Our challenge is more of ignorance than stupidity. Having informed decisions most of us will make reasonable decisions. ~ Ted Agon

The question is a curious collection of words. ~ Ted Agon

The "question" is the original open-source code. ~ Ted Agon

Guy thought of the Greek word agon, wasn't it at once an athletic contest and a style of suffering, an agony? ~ Edmund White

With our ignorance, they win, we lose. ~ Ted Agon

We are changing all the time and this never changes.
It is not whether we change, it is how much and in what direction we change. These choices are ours can only be made by us ~ Ted Agon

The "question" is the smallest and greatest unit of discovery. ~ Ted Agon

I have an unfounded belief that there is a conspiracy out there creating unsupportable theories. ~ Ted Agon

Questions are vehicles to the future. Answers are milestones along the way. ~ Ted Agon

Creativity rudely trespasses and tramples on accepted grounds. ~ Ted Agon

Pacifists are reluctant to remember this, but early on the ancient Greeks invented democracy as a continuation of war by other means. The assembly practice on the scale of the citystate came directly from the assembly of warriors. Equality of speech stemmed from equality in the face of death. Athenian democracy was a hoplitic democracy. One was a citizen because one was a soldier - hence the exclusion of women and slaves. In a culture as violently agonistic as classical Greek culture, debate itself was understood as a moment of warlike confrontation, between citizens this time, in the sphere of speech, with the arms of persuasion.Moreover, "agon" signifies "assembly" as much as "competition. " The complete Greek citizen was one who was victorious both with arms and with discourse. ~ Anonymous

But Agon did not force this prison upon you. He is the jailer of many, but you are the one who possesses the keys to your own cell. He may hunt you, but he did not lock you away here, nor force upon you the choices you have made these last few years. Your prison is in your mind, where you limit yourself, where you take on the voice of the Beast and speak to yourself the way he would if he could only get to you. But he does not need to if you will do the work for him. Fear is what locked you away, Ifferon, and fear is a tool of Agon. When you fear you open the gate that lets him into your mind. His greatest weapon is fear, for it drives strong men to madness. So why then be afraid? ~ Dean F. Wilson

All ancient philosophers, poets, and moralists agree that love is a striving, an aspiration of the "lower" toward the "higher," the "unformed" toward the "formed," ... "appearance" towards "essence," "ignorance" towards "knowledge," a "mean between fullness and privation," as Plato says in the Symposium. ... The universe is a great chain of dynamic spiritual entities, of forms of being ranging from the "prima materia" up to man - a chain in which the lower always strives for and is attracted by the higher, which never turns back but aspires upward in its turn. This process continues up to the deity, which itself does not love, but represents the eternally unmoving and unifying goal of all these aspirations of love. Too little attention has been given to the peculiar relation between this idea of love and the principle of the "agon," the ambitious contest for the goal, which dominated Greek life in all its aspects - from the Gymnasium and the games to dialectics and the political life of the Greek city states. Even the objects try to surpass each other in a race for victory, in a cosmic "agon" for the deity. Here the prize that will crown the victor is extreme: it is a participation in the essence, knowledge, and abundance of "being." Love is only the dynamic principle, immanent in the universe, which sets in motion this great "agon" of all things for the deity.
Let us compare this with the Christian conception. In that conception there takes place what might be called a ~ Max Scheler

Candy can coax kids. Cooked cabbage can't. ~ Ted Agon

Without mountains and valleys life would just be plain. ~ Ted Agon

Practice is the process of moving conscious action into subconscious and unconscious action. ~ Ted Agon

Those who don't question don't think. Those who don't think don't question. ~ Ted Agon

A good haunted house is about the utter collapse of our accidental differences, the uselessness of class, of gender, of education, of personal history, of all the distinctions we cobble together and call the self. Late enough at night none of this stuff protects you, not from the boogeyman. What's haunted or, more accurately, what's uncovered by terror, is the poor forked thing, and the agon of a haunted house isn't between God and Satan, or the righteous and the sinners, but rather between the self and annihilation. ~ Charles D'Ambrosio

Conscious practice becomes unconscious practice. ~ Ted Agon

We are the sum and synergy of all our experiences. ~ Ted Agon

It is absolutely possible that the impossible is possible. ~ Ted Agon

An investment in questions is the only way to increase human and financial capital. ~ Ted Agon

The perfect life is not worth living. There would be nothing to look forward to. The imperfect life is perfect. ~ Ted Agon

To forbid mistakes is to forbid learning. ~ Ted Agon