Confession: I don't want everybody to be beautiful, not in that unlined, creaseless, symmetrical way. Android beauty, like it comes out of a test tube. Beauty without blemish or mark. Not only do I not identify with such people, I don't believe in th...
He lived like a devil and died like a saint. Life is paradoxical, but I believe that I could also be the person I am today, if life would have cut me with happiness, instead of pain. I would be the same. I didn’t need the pain to grow, or be who I ...
Why should each generation be brought up on the selective prejudices of the one before it? I believe that this is exactly the point of history. And not just reading or studying history but also approaching it with a sceptical bent of mind. When each ...
Looking to that future, there is every reason to believe that science and religion will both continue to flourish, to enlighten, to inspire; as well as to frustrate, to obfuscate, and to oppress. Some people may wish that one half of this essentiall...
In the end, He's the only reason that I made it. Sometimes that's the only thing we have. Whether you call it God, or hope, or faith -whatever word you use- the fact is, I couldn't have survived if I hadn't believed in something. It was the one part ...
I no longer believed that Valentino would continue to build anything at all. Instead, he would merely leave behind the empire of hope that he had constructed in each of our minds. Leonardo's empire boasted cities more perfect than Plato or Augustine ...
Many women to whom I have preached the doctrine of freedom have weakly replied, 'But who is to support the children?' It seems to me that if the marriage ceremony is needed as a protection to insure the enforced support of children, then you are marr...
If you’ve been exiled, why don’t you send me word of yourself? People do send word. Have you stopped loving me? No, for some reason I don’t believe that. It means you were exiled and died … Release me, then, I beg you, give me freedom to live...
Though she had been surprised to find that murder was so thoroughly enjoyable, Mrs Bennet did not believe that this reflected any fault or wickedness in her character. She knew she only committed these acts to secure the future well-being of her daug...
I believe the message in the hymn “Rise Up, O Men of God” (Hymns, no. 324) is a plea, a call, a divine invitation for us to rise above the telestial tinsel of our time; to deny ourselves of ungodliness and clothe ourselves in the mantle of holine...
You don’t understand,” Mairelon said dully. “Kim doesn’t want to marry a toff.” Was that what was bothering him? “Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nod cocks!” Kim said with as much indignation as she c...
Some people spend their entire lives devoted to a religion that claims to be the ‘right’ religion... they often deny scientific evidence that contradicts their archaic holy books, they sometimes oppress those who disagree with them, and they alwa...
To the extent that we believe we can skip steps, avoid the process, magically gain power through political connections or easy formulas, or depend on our natural talents, we move against this grain and reverse our natural powers. We become slaves to ...
Corruption,' Jordan Belfort believes, 'is endemic to human being. I mean, even men in monasteries - where enticement is hard to come by – even men in those circumstances have sex with other men and abuse children. Look at the Catholic Church! Man i...
our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the wag-th...
Believe it or not, some of us have piercings and tattoos and dye our hair because we think it looks pretty, not for any deep sociological reason. This isn't an act of protest against cultural or social repression. It's not a grand, deliberately defia...
I don't care much whether I ever get to know anything - but I want to work out something in figures - something that hasn't got to do with human beings. I don't want people particularly. In some ways, Henry, I'm a humbug - I mean, I'm not what you al...
The threats that resurfaced in the past 10 years were not an aberration. Al Qaeda and terrorism or one such threat, but it was actually not the most serious threat that the United States faced. The president can and should speak of foreseeing an era ...
Consider A Move The steady time of being unknown, in solitude, without friends, is not a steadiness that sustains. I hear your voice waver on the phone: The voice zeroes through my ear, and waits. What should I say? There are ways to meet people you ...
Suddenly I realized that I wanted everything to be as it was when I was younger. When you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing other than a chair. A dandelion growing out of a crack in t...
