I don't look at my work in a critical or analytical way; I just don't think of myself objectively. It doesn't interest me.
I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken.
Some lurid things have been said about me—that I am a racist, a hopeless alcoholic, a closet homosexual and so forth—that I leave to others to decide the truth of. I'd only point out, though, that if true these accusations must also have been tru...
Watching the towers fall in New York, with civilians incinerated on the planes and in the buildings, I felt something that I couldn’t analyze at first and didn't fully grasp (partly because I was far from my family in Washington, who had a very gru...
The necessity of reform mustn’t be allowed to become a form of blackmail serving to limit, reduce, or halt the exercise of criticism. Under no circumstances should one pay attention to those who tell one: “Don’t criticize, since you’re not ca...
When it comes to current attitudes about surgery, the practice of dismissing the cultural context and rationalizing it as individual betterment "flattens the terrain of power relations." In other words, we can talk about doing it for us until our hig...
The Qur’ān began by criticizing two closely related aspects of that society: the polytheism or multiplicity of gods which was symptomatic of the segmentation of society, and the gross socioeconomic disparities that equally rested on and perpetuate...
The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made ...
Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the pri...
Humans are built to move. We evolved under conditions that required daily intense physical activity, and even among individuals with lower physical potential, that hard-earned genotype is still ours today. The modern sedentary lifestyle leads to the ...
These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings ...
…such criticism and mockery are largely beside the point. All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to to intellectual argument or academic criticism. Polls routinely indicate...
And when you are criticized, as you will be, remind your critics that you have the right to speak your mind. And if they shout you down, as they probably will, then inform them that since they insist on being asses, you will henceforth communicate wi...
A philosophical thought is not supposed to be impervious to all criticism; this is the error Whitehead describes of turning philosophy into geometry, and it is useful primarily as a way of gaining short-term triumphs in personal arguments that no one...
If humans did not manufacture some of their own to appear like better people, people would not aspire to be someone else. They would stop dreaming. And if people didn't dream, they would be awake to discover the wonderful misery of being. There are n...
Being genius does not necessarily mean knowing it all or having the highest academic qualification; but a persons ability to apply wisdom and common sense to common things in a distinctive manner and courageously, exhibiting the latent deft to the ad...
A brick could be used to perpetually feed the hungry, stop all wars, educate the masses, and ensure everlasting peace for all populations throughout time. Wait, I’m sorry, that’s not right. I was confusing a brick with a blanket. It’s a blanket...
The Amoeba?" she asked Aiden. "The gang," he said, tossing his hand to indicate all around. "My people. A large amorphous mass that keeps on changing size, hasn't much apparent use, sometimes makes you sick, and occasionally breaks off into smaller p...
A brick could be used to control whole populations of people. Just get a good looking person, like a news anchor, to give it out to the masses and say soothing things with a straight face and all will be OK and the system will continue on as centrall...
La beauté est une chose très surfaite. Ça ne requiert aucune compétence, pas le moindre talent ou mérite. J’en veux pour preuve la quantité de belles filles totalement idiotes à déplorer ou la masse de jolis garçons bêtes comme une valise...
...any concentrated mass is actually a local distortion of space itself, there happens to be exactly one surface, registered with the U.S. Patent Office, which, incorporated into a suitable hat design, will take the impact load of any known safe fall...
