A novel, in which all is created by the author's whim, must strike a more profound level of truth, or it is worthless." "And yet, I have heard you say that any novel that relieves your ennui for an hour has proved its usefulness." "You have a good me...
There is a beauty in paradox when it comes to talking about things of ultimate concern. Paradox works against our tendency to stay superficial in our faith, or to rest on easy answers or categorical thinking. It breaks apart our categories by showing...
Although stigmatizing attitudes are not limited to mental illness, the public seems to disapprove persons with psychiatric disabilities significantly more than persons with related conditions such as physical illness (34-36). Severe mental illness ha...
The appeal to the intellectually insecure is also more important than it might seem. Because economics touches so much of life, everyone wants to have an opinion. Yet the kind of economics covered in the textbooks is a technical subject that many peo...
Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's chief technology officer, was asked by The Huffington Post, "What's the most important lesson you've learned from a mistake you've made in the past?" "I said no to a lot of opportunities when I was just starting out because...
In the silence punctuated only by their footsteps, both men thought not of themselves but of a Man who once made a long,lonely march up a hill, who in the world's worst hour did the most courageous thing ever done. At the end of His climb,He spread o...
There are times when every act, no matter how private or unconscious, becomes political. Whom you live with, how you wear your hair, whether you marry, whether you insist that your child take piano lessons, what are the brand names on your shelf; all...
Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. ...
[Doubt] is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a ...
The next prisoner looks twelve. He says he's sixteen. He knows it is shameful to fight for the FNLA, but they told him that if he went to the front they would send him to school afterward. He wants to finish school because he wants to paint. if he co...
If someone were to autopsy her heart, they'd find traces of life, evidence of eons gone by. Times when she'd been able to feel and the feelings left imprints. Maybe her heart was wearing a cast. Maybe it wasn't sclerosed at all but atrophied, shrunke...
Why do so many today want to wander off to South Africa or Kenya or India or Russia or Honduras or Costa Rica or Peru to help with justice issues but not spend the same effort in their own neighborhood or community or state? Why do young suburbanites...
Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and pu...
And tonight I'm feelin like an astronaut, sending sos from this tiny box,and i lost the signal when i lifted off, now i'm stuck up here and the world forgot, can i please come down? Cuz i'm tired of drifting round and round....can i please come down?...
Value all relationships for the lessons they teach. Make sure you learn the lessons well. If not you will repeat those mistakes over and over. Focus on the kind of relationship you do want! Surround yourself with people who manifest those characteris...
This is an emotional request to the for-profit startups I help to build, strategize, and monetize. I do it for free because I care for you and your vision. I don't take an equity or a salary despite knowing that you and your investors will make money...
Thankfully existing only in SMALL pockets within our discipline, is “intellectual” snobbery. It’s a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn’t attend the right school or don’t have the...
Regardless of the subject of my films … I am looking for a way of evoking in audiences feelings similar to my own: the physically painful impotence and sorrow that assail me when I see a man weeping at the bus stop, when I observe people struggling...
There is history the way Tolstoy imagined it, as a great, slow-moving weather system in which even tsars and generals are just leaves before the storm. And there is history the way Hollywood imagines it, as a single story line in which the right move...
PROVERBS 18, GOD'S GOODY BAG OF FAVOR. God wants us to find the hidden treasures. When a person "finds" anything, it is implied that the object found is already there but "hidden." In this case, it would be hidden by God, so God would have to be the ...
In the field I’m in, there is a lot of that and it gets offered to me all the time. People even go as far as to just stick it in your pocket and walk off. Now, if it was a good thing, they wouldn’t do that. I mean, would somebody drop something b...