Number 2 - Winter

Haven't you realized that the party can go on for ever and it only depends on oneself?

Have you found out yet that we are born and we die every moment?

Isn't time an invisible slave collar that we have installed on ourselves?

Couldn't all the gods united bring us to our senses and manage to get us to stop killing each other on the pretext of loving them?

In what run of the mill wars am I involved?

Did you know that the word 'Travail', work, comes from the Roman contraption called a 'tripallium', made of three poles as an instument of torture?

What could possibly be embarrassing about sex except being free to be yourself?

Do you relize that everything between the cradle and the grave is pure love?

Is this what I want to see?

Have you considered that education does not consist in filling the student's mind but rather in setting fire to its natural curiosity?

Have you ever stopped to think what a trap our comfort is?

And what if we spent more time in dialogue and less in monologue?

Isn't asking questions a way of telling tales?

 

 

 

Have you noticed that equality makes us free, that difference makes us rich and that love makes us wise?

Do you believe that life only changes when we ourselves change?

Is the future conceivable if one person can't imagine it and two together can't create it?

Where can I find real tomatoes, like in the old days?

What is the dividing line between innocence and ignorance?

Are our opinions, our judgements and our conclusions the bars of our mental prison?

Is 'to be and not to be?' the answer to the question, 'to be or not to be?'

Did some god make man or did man make all the gods?

Are you satisfied with things or do you feel resentment, and a desire to blame everyone else?

Why do others cause you alarm if we all share the same destiny?

Why didn't this child want to be born?

Is there anyone out there?

 

Silly Questions?

It was at school. We had to find out what causes lightning. We were in Physics class and so we consulted first of all the higrometer?

The air had to be dry. Then we rubbed the electrodes with soft cloth to make sure it was perfectly dry. At this point we started winding the dynamo's handle to generate a dry loud crack of a spark between the anode and the cathode. 'You see!' said the teacher in a satisfied way, 'This is how lightning is formed in nature, except in reality the spark is enormous.'

'But', I dared to raise a question,'Why should the apparatus and the surrounding air be so dry?' ...'Because otherwise it wouldn't be possible to generate the necessary tension between the positive and negative poles. As we all know water is a very good conductor of electricity and so the electric tension would be dissipated by the droplets of water before it could cause the lightning. The lightning wouldn't occur.' ......'But', I continued ,'lightning storms usually occur when the weather is wet . Why then doesn't the electricity dissipate before it flashes?' The teacher lost his patience with me and said that on this very question many intelligent people had been busy for ages and that one just has to accept things the way they are, without giving them more thought. And what is more he added, it would be better for me to worry about my low marks instead of asking silly questions!

Michael Ende