But struggling with these better feelings was pride,--the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the...
There is something stunningly narrow about how the Anthropic Principle is phrased. Yes, only certain laws and constants of nature are consistent with our kind of life. But essentially the same laws and constants are required to make a rock. So why no...
Equity bids us be merciful to the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his intentions; n...
My heart might very well beat itself from my chest," she whispered, "and 'tis difficult to breathe." "How odd." Passion thickened his voice. "I seem to be suffering the same symptoms. Does anything else plague you?" "A terrible weakness," she whisper...
I used to think, that when my old inner demons started creeping back into my life, that it was a sign of failure or moral weakness. But the saints have shown me that part of the human condition is to struggle with the same sins and suffering over and...
But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing o...
Finally, she looked up at him and met his gaze, and she gasped. He knew what must be visible on his face and therefore did not try to deny it. “You know,” he rasped out. “You have always known, and you will always know that I am yours, and yet ...
Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of...
The 'Dance of Love' is much more of a dialogue, one takes the lead and the other follows. One dictates a step and the other carries it out. One determines the direction, the other determines the distance travelled in a given figure. One sets the pace...
Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike ...
It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassai...
The women we really love are the women who complete us, who have the qualities we can borrow and so become something nearer to whole men. Just as we complete them, of course; it’s not a one-way thing. Leola and I, when romance was stripped away, we...
If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts,...
Humans are most imaginative when they need a means of self-destruction. If the world existed in an overflowing amount of happiness; a utopian state, then the suicide rate would dwarf any extinction level threat. Humans cannot be trusted with their ow...
...people change, even good people, if they get the wrong thing in their head. And not everything is always what it looks like and sometimes just because one person looks weak, they might be very strong, and another person might look like a spooky fr...
Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the ...
You have two choices in life when it comes to truthful observations by others that anger you: You can be ashamed and cover it up by letting your pride take you in the extreme opposite direction, in order to make the point that they are wrong. Or, you...
I see that I've become a really bad correspondent. It's not that I don't think of you. You come into my thoughts often. But when you do it appears to me that I owe you a particularly grand letter. And so you end in the "warehouse of good intentions":...
I think about going to the lake, but I'm so weak that I barely make it to my meeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without his body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking t...
Is there a definition of a truly good person? .... Many say that "Nice guys finish last", that "kindness is weakness", and so on. To those of you who are told "Your too nice" or you tell yourself that. That is something to hold on to! So many people ...
Vices and inherent weaknesses in the philosophy, culture and art. If philosophy, art and culture destroyed a violence and debauchery. And replaced it with naivety, touching and romantic. Then people would have realized that they thought wrong, they i...
