The trial of Jesus of Nazareth, the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, any one of the witchcraft trials in Salem during 1691, the Moscow trials of 1937 during which Stalin destroyed all of the founders of the 1924 Soviet REvolution, the Sacco-V...
What indeed is the half-life of a mortal consciousness? What is the half-life of a memory of that mortal consciousness? Of course, this is purely an academic question and of no immediate concern to those of us existing in the world of the living, for...
It is necessary to realize that the most sacrosanct article of sexual politics in the period, the Victorian doctrine of chivalrous protection and its familiar protestations of respect, rests upon the tacit assumption, a cleverly expeditious bit of hu...
Everyone asks me how I got started into writing. I wish I had some cool story to tell, but the truth is pretty lame. My wife and I were having a drink on our back porch and I mentioned a concept I'd been mulling over. She suggested that I write it do...
She studied me with concern. She touched the new streak of gray in my hair that matched hers exactly—our painful souvenir from holding Atlas's burden. There was a lot I'd wanted to say to Annabeth, but Athena had taken the confidence out of me. I f...
I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy...
In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were a...
That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin...
Recent brain scans have shed light on how the brain simulates the future. These simulation are done mainly in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the CEO of the brain, using memories of the past. On one hand, simulations of the future may produce out...
Marx wrote about finance and industry all his life but he only knew two people connected with financial and industrial processes. One was his uncle in Holland, Lion Philips, a successful businessman who created what eventually became the vast Philips...
When Death, or adverse Fortune's ruthless gale, Tears our best hopes away, the wounded Heart Exhausted, leans on all that can impart The charm of Sympathy; her mutual wail How soothing! never can her warm tears fail To balm our bleeding grief's sever...
[Skinner is explaining why the NWA had Martin Blower murdered] Simon Skinner: You see, much as I enjoyed your wild theories Sergeant, the truth is far less complex. Blower's fate was simply the result of his being... an appalling actor. NWA Members: ...
T.E. Lawrence: Sherif Ali!. So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people. Greedy, barbarous and cruel, as you are. Sherif Ali: Come. I will take you to Feisal. T.E. Lawrence: I do not want your ...
Skinner: [on Linguini] Look at him out there, pretending to be an idiot! He's toying with my mind like a cat with a ball... of something! Lawyer: String? Skinner: Yes! Playing dumb, taunting me with that RAT! Lawyer: [confused] Rat? Skinner: Yes! He'...
[Strangelove's plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio] General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the ...
Katerina Cavalieri: I heard you met Herr Mozart. Antonio Salieri: News travels fast in Vienna. Katerina Cavalieri: And he's been commissioned to write an opera. Is it true? Antonio Salieri: Yes. Katerina Cavalieri: Is there a part in it for me? Anton...
Frank Olson had joined the Special Operations Division of the Army's Biological Laboratory at Fort Detrick at its inception in 1950. He was issued a Q clearance, the civilian equivalent of the military's top secret clearance, and worked with the CIA ...
This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and ...
It's funny. When we were alive we spent much of our time staring up at the cosmos and wondering what was out there. We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perh...
Human perfection and technical perfection are incompatible. If we strive for one, we must sacrifice the other: there is, in any case, a parting of the ways. Whoever realises this will do cleaner work one way or the other. Technical perfection strives...
The kiss is the greatest of gifts, uniquely human. A kiss before midnight. A kiss before dying. The Judas kiss. The kiss of the devil. A big wet smacker beneath the mistletoe. More can be said with a kiss than a book full of words. We kiss to say I l...
