Secularism drew a radical distinction between public and private life, in which religion, in any traditional sense, was relegated to the private sphere with no hold over public life. There are many charms in secularism, in particular the freedom to b...
For a moment he came near to sharing their incredible belief—it would do no harm to mutter a prayer of thanks to the God of his childhood, the God of the Common and the castle, that no ill had yet come to Sarah's child. Then a sonic boom scattered ...
Allowing attachments to people/things create a compulsive addiction in us to be controlling. This “control” (fueled by fear of loss) fools us into a false sense of security and love. At first glance, it is common to confuse the idea of Conscious ...
As I, my real self, grew older, I entered more and more into the substance of my dreams. One may dream, and even in the midst of the dream be aware that he is dreaming, and if the dream be bad, comfort himself with the thought that it is only a dream...
It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was b...
Lately it's started to seem to me that here in America our fetishization of self-reliance has taken a wrong turn and has helped enable us to jettison compassion as a national value while still maintaining a vision of ourselves as essentially well-mea...
While some accused and convicted child molesters have inappropriately influenced the media, the public, and many in the clinical and legal professions by claiming that traumatic amnesia does not occur in child sexual abuse, workers in the field of tr...
As an artist you look into yourself to understand the human potential to be all kinds of things that are not necessarily pleasant but are real - a criminal, a murderer, a sadist, a rapist; to be all of these things that many people are. You can't all...
General: [when soldiers have gathered in observatory room on Laputa; Muska appears before them as a hologram] General: What's going on? Col. Muska: Hold your tongue, commoner! You are in the presence of the king of Laputa. General: The man has gone *...
Sirius Black: [in his letter] "Harry, I couldn't risk sending Hedwig. Since the World Cup the Ministry has been intercepting more and more owls, and she's too easily recognized. We need to talk, Harry, face to face. Meet me in the Gryffindor Common R...
Spock: [volunteering for what could be a suicide mission] Romulans and Vulcans share a common ancestor. Our cultural similarities will make it easier for me to access the ship's computer to locate the device. Also, my mother was human, which makes Ea...
Gorman: [referring to the knife game] I thought you never missed, Bishop. [Ripley looks up to see a white milky substance leaking from between Bishop's thumb and index fingers] Ripley: [to Burke in an accusatory tone] You never said anything about an...
Dr. Emmett Brown: You've got to get your father and mother to interact in some sort of social... Marty McFly: Wh-what? You mean like a date? Dr. Emmett Brown: Right! Marty McFly: What kind of date? I don't know. What do kids do in the '50s? Dr. Emmet...
Charlie: I could tell you some stories... Barton: Sure you could and yet many writers do everything in their power to insulate themselves from the common man, from where they live, from where they trade, from where they fight and love and converse an...
The worst feature of the Common Core is its anti-humanistic, utilitarian approach to education. It mistakes what a child is and what a human being is for. That is why it has no use for poetry, and why it boils the study of literature down to the scra...
There is no need for us all to be alike and think the same way, neither do we need a common enemy to force us to come together and reach out to each other. If we allow ourselves and everyone else the freedom to fully individuate as spiritual beings i...
As parents we carry the blueprints, the dreams of what our family could be. The plans change, the whole thing goes way over budget, there are unexpected additions, and the work never ends. Still, through the messiness of construction we see each othe...
What is a Poet? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mank...
You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your...
There was no singles problem until singles got so single-minded that they stopped wasting time with anyone ineligible. Before that, it was understood that one of society's main tasks was matchmaking. People with lifelong friendships and ties to local...
Men who give up the common goal of all things that exist, thereby cease to exist themselves. Some may perhaps think it strange that we say that wicked men, who form the majority of men, do not exist; but that is how it is. I am not trying to deny the...
