Stalin was the most audible and powerful spokesman in the campaign against what he contemptuously called uravnilovka (leveling). His hostility - voiced in sarcastic and dismissive terms - was so deep and so clearly enunciated that it rapidly became s...
From the standpoint of the upper classes, the system had many merits. They felt that what was paid out of the poor rate was charity, and therefore a proof of their benevolence; at the same time, wages were kept at starvation level by a method which j...
I am opposed to animal welfare campaigns for two reasons. First, if animal use cannot be morally justified, then we ought to be clear about that, and advocate for no use. Although rape and child molestation are ubiquitous, we do not have campaigns fo...
Countries with a high percentage of nonbelievers are among the freest, most stable, best-educated, and healthiest nations on earth. When nations are ranked according to a human-development index, which measures such factors as life expectancy, litera...
[Saito has been shot in the chest] Cobb: How's he doing? Ariadne: He's in a lot of pain. Cobb: When we get down to the lower levels, the pain will be less intense. Ariadne: And if he dies? Cobb: Worst case scenario? When he wakes up, his mind is comp...
Karen Clarke: What's going on there, Simon? Simon Foster: It's... It's departmental business. It's about a wall. Karen Clarke: Oh, Gaza? Simon Foster: Uh-huh. Karen Clarke: I'm wondering where you were in committee, Simon. I called for back-up and yo...
Will Munny: Who's the fellow owns this shithole? [pause] Will Munny: You, fat man. Speak up. Skinny Dubois: Uh, I... I own this establishment. I bought the place from Greeley for a thousand dollars. [Will levels the shotgun, and speaks to someone sta...
Baymax: [to Hiro, who's stuck and buried under a pile of action figures] On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain? Hiro: [irritated] Zero. Baymax: It is alright to cry. Hiro: No! No, no, no, no, no! Baymax: [picks up Hiro and holds him ...
[Marty and Doc are asking how fast the train could go] Marty McFly: Do you think it's possible to get it up to... 90? Engineer: Ha! 90? Tarnation, son, who'd ever need to be in such a hurry? Doc: Well, it's just a little bet he and I have, that's all...
How do we find words for describing levels of betrayal and emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual torture that fragment and destroy a child or cast and case traumatic shadows over the whole of adult life? We might, as a society, slowly find it pos...
One late-autumn day I opened the back door to fetch some water, and there was a young hare sat on my back step. Save for the twitching of its nose, it froze in position as if I had surprised it as it was about to knock. It was already the size of a f...
Three quick breaths triggered the responses: he fell into the floating awareness... focusing the consciousness... aortal dilation... avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness... to be conscious by choice... blood enriched and swift-flooding t...
Further, any way of life based on the importation of resources is also functionally based on violence, because if your way of life requires the importation of resources, trade will never be sufficiently reliable: if people in the next watershed over ...
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and a...
As I focus on diligent joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once -- that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smalle...
Yes, I am finally a match for Amy. The other morning I woke up next to her, and I studied the back of her skull. I tried to read her thoughts. For once I didn't feel like I was staring into the sun. I'm rising to my wife's level of madness. Because I...
In this confusion we begin to see what lies behind John Paul II's startling warning about democracy "effectively mov[ing] towards a form of totalitarianism." It begins to happen at a practical level when we simultaneously hold that rights which arise...
Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress. The loss of industry and skill in Africa was extremely small, if we measure it from the viewpoint of...
Now yes, yes, creation sometimes screams a confusing message—fear, pain, grief. Fire burns, rivers flood, winds go hurricane, the earth shudders so hard it levels cities. But you must remember—this was not so in Eden. Mankind fell, surrendering t...
Nature loves efficiency, which is very odd for something supposedly working at random. When you drop a ball, it falls straight down without taking any unexpected detours. When two molecules with the potential for bonding meet, they always bond- there...
If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that de...
