(on being born on Christmas Day, 1924) I was a Christmas present... by Rod Serling

(on being born on Christmas Day, 1924) I was a Christmas present that was delivered unwrapped.

Rod Serling

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Categorized in : Twilight Zone Christmas Present

This is not a new world - it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements...technological advances...and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like everyone of the super-states that preceded it - it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.

iron boots enemy

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.

keys twilight moving

Every Superstate has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and the tru... by Rod Serling

Every Superstate has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and the truth is a menace.

iron logic enemy

For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

prejudice twilight children

We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think.

cereal able thinking

If you write, fix pipes, grade papers, lay bricks or drive a taxi - do it with a sense of pride. And do it the best you know how. Be cognizant and sympathetic to the guy alongside, because he wants a place in the sun, too. And always...always look past his color, his creed, his religion and the shape of his ears. Look for the whole person. Judge him as the whole person.

pride writing past

In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.

dislike-someone prejudice men

There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are... by Rod Serling

There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on.

light darkness dark

I found that it was all right to have Martians saying things Democrats and Republicans could never say.

democrat republican found

This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you're on a through route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable...Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination. . . Next stop The Twilight Zone.

land twilight reality

All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes - all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge,,then we become the gravediggers.

buchenwald dachau men

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead—your next stop, the Twilight Zone.

twilight journey sight

Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man, that state is obsolete.

dignity rights men

Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being; he does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can't allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business.

causes humanity thinking

Being like everybody is the same as being nobody. by Rod Serling

Being like everybody is the same as being nobody.

Somewhere between apathy and anarchy lies the thinking human bein... by Rod Serling

Somewhere between apathy and anarchy lies the thinking human being.

apathy lying thinking

According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man’s prerogative - and woman’s - to create their own particular and private hell.

earth men heaven

There are weapons that are simply thoughts. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy.

prejudice ubuntu peace

It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.

writing men thinking

I just want people to remember me a hundred years from now. I don't care that they're not able to quote any single line that I've written. But just that they can say, "Oh, he was a writer." That's sufficiently an honored position for me.

care people years