If one divided all of human science into two parts - the one common to all men, the other particular to the learned - the latter would be quite small in comparison with the former. But we are hardly aware of what is generally attained, because it is ...
Even if we’ve never been inside a synagogue or a mosque or a church—even if we have, and vowed never to go back—deep down in our striving hearts, beneath all the ambition and the fear, we suspect that we were made for a different sort of life.
[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which b...
I have no nostalgia for the patriarchy, please believe me. But what I have come to realize is that, when that patriarchic system was (rightfully) dismantled, it was not necessarily replaced by another form of protection. What I mean is--I never thoug...
The materialist theory of history, that all politics and ethics are the expression of economics, is a very simple fallacy indeed. It consists simply of confusing the necessary conditions of life with the normal preoccupations of life, that are quite ...
Parents have this twisted belief that anyone under the age of about twenty simply can’t know what love is, like the age to love is assessed in the same way the law assesses the legal age to drink. They think that the ‘emotional growth’ of a tee...
I got nervous at bulls and eagles, Trying to figure what shape Zeus might take for sex When it could be turn next. But now I don't care any longer, I've come to my senses, your profile leaves me cold. Why am I different? you ask. I'll tell you. . Tha...
Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand-from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: 'How can I ...
It is a curiously moving experience, to hear 350 sailors uttering the words "Oh shit!" in eleven different languages.
I loved that man as I have loved no one else. I do not say I loved him more than I love your mother. But that the way I loved him was different. But if you have heard there was anything improper in our bond, there was not. That was not what we were t...
If you knew this day would be your last one, what would you be doing differently? Wouldn't you seize the day and get the most out of it? One of these days will be your last one. Why not seize every day you have left?
I'm gonna kill him," Eve said, or at least that was what it sounded like filtered through the pillow. Stake him right in the heart, shove garlic up his ass, and-and-" And what?" (Michael) When did you get home?" Claire demanded. Apparently just in ti...
This funny thing happens when you graduate college. You hear so much about being an adult that you start to feel like you have to become a different person overnight, that growing up means being not you. And you concentrate so hard on living up to th...
Are you all right,” he whispered, his lips brushing the tips of my spiky hair. Granted, I knew he was only being discreet so as to save poor Hillary from being reamed again, but my knees didn’t know the difference. They betrayed me, buckling unde...
Why would a vampire create a younger vampire if there was a possibility the young one might end up destroying the old one?' Stephin stared. 'If you can explain to me how this is different from parenting in general I might know how to answer that.
So you've been gone a couple days,' Alison said. 'Hmm, what'd you miss...A celebrity did drugs. Politicians disagreed. A different celebrity wore a bikini that revealed a bodily imperfection. A team won a sporting event, but another team lost.' I smi...
As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We've still been running in the mornings, but the city's different then. It's filled with hope and with bristles of ...
The two came to differ on many, if not most, issues. But the man who would single-handedly defy Hitler in 1940 against all odds bears a striking resemblance to the man who organized the first satyagraha campaign in South Africa.
There is enough conformity in the world Lord MacCaulay. I doubt that mine, or lack of it, will send the planet from its axis. Meanwhile, my heart does not soar for the riches you set before me. Perhaps one day, I may feel differently. For now, I wish...
We think we know that chimpanzees are higher animals and earthworms are lower, we think we've always known what that means, and we think evolution makes it even clearer. But it doesn't. It is by no means clear that it means anything at all. Or if it ...
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the l...