You shouldn't go around the world behaving ruthlessly when you don't have to. Sometimes you do have to. There is only so much pie to go around. If you're going to take more than your fair share of pie, as socialists would look at it, then someone els...
If you happen to hold that human consciousness is no more than the epiphenomenon, or secretion, of our individual brains then you are more or less trapped in your own skull. But if consciousness is open, if it can partake in a more global form of bei...
When I was in Beck's world, I felt like the little sister. I'm in the big brother's room with all his friends. You just hang out and keep your mouth shut so they don't realize you're there and kick you out. I like being in situations where I can be a...
Years ago atheism was an individual phenomenon; today atheism is social, the atheist who once was a curiosity, is now a component part of some of the governments of the world. Once men quarreled because they wanted God worshipped in a certain way; no...
It is not the sanctuary that is in danger; it is civilization. It is not infallibility that may go down; it is personal rights. It is not the Eucharist that may pass away; it is freedom of conscience. It is not divine justice that may evaporate; it i...
I should have paid greater attention to my mentor in graduate school, Samuel Huntington, who once explained that Americans never recognize that, in the developing world, the key is not the kind of government — communist, capitalist, democratic, dic...
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughin...
The best love in the world, is the love of a man. The love of a man who came from your womb, the love of your son! I don't have a daughter, but maybe the love of a daughter is the best, too. I am first and foremost me, but right after that, I am a mo...
Some people are just world-changers. Wherever they go, things can't do anything else but change! They walk into a room and they're like, "This is all wrong, this needs to change." It's an energy thing. You're on this high vibrational level and you ca...
They get quieter over the years. They still whisper to you sometimes, but the world gets louder. You can see it and hear it again. There's a gap in it, where they used to be. But you get used to the gap; so used to it that you can hardly see it. And ...
I’ve learned, Agent Sanders, most warriors feel the same way after they’ve come back from the battles where men in expensive suits and leather chairs send them. We keep asking and asking you to do the impossible and even when you succeed it seems...
We must eschew anything trivial. We must embrace all that is frivolous.... Trivial things take up all your time and dull your senses, whereas frivolity is meaningful, profound, worth living and dying for.... If we devote our lives to frivolity, the w...
I stroked Eric's hair, tucking some behind his ear. His eyes on mine were intent, and I knew he was waiting for me to speak. "I wish," I said, "I could save orgasms in a jar for when i need them, because I think I had a few extra." Eric's eyes widene...
At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. There is nothing in the T...
Will I someday pass into history having passed by God and therefore forfeited the opportunity to change my world and reap the blessing of being able to do so because I saw myself as inadequate to achieve either? And how long will it take me to realiz...
Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this wi...
Snorkel through our vibrant menagerie of fish and marine life, each one of which has been clearly tagged and labeled for your convenience. Do you think the jokers at Sandals would do that for you? We’ve stocked our ivory reef with disparate creatur...
Grace has to be the loveliest word in the English language. It embodies almost every attractive quality we hope to find in others. Grace is a gift of the humble to the humiliated. Grace acknowledges the ugliness of sin by choosing to see beyond it. G...
Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting co...
Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading i...
That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true — not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is t...