To boldly go where no man has gone before” says the iconic Captain’s Oath in the Star Trek series. Humanity seeks to live adventures, either by conquering mountains or the seas, or by watching war movies, space adventures, fantasies and thrillers...
If the entire course of evolution were compressed into a single year, the earliest bacteria would appear at the end of March, but we wouldn't see the first human ancestors until 6 a.m. on December 31st. The golden age of Greece, about 500 BCE, would ...
Do you think things always have an explanation? "Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the e...
Not that time alone with Ingrid was something to wish away. She'd chosen him. Given herself to him, and even though he couldn't claim her in the human way, she was still his. Passing the day and night in the quiet town home was giving him a taste of ...
It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature-whether theological or technological-is a kind of schizophrenia. It would be ...
Too many people are too angry about language too much of the time. This time could be better spent listening, learning, and enjoying the vast variety of human language around them.
To most of the general public, language comes down less to wonder than a rather censorious bifurcated sentiment – namely, that the vast majority of the world's humans either speak and something primitive or speak something badly.
I keep thinking about the march I joined today. It's bigger and stronger than war. That's why it will win. The people must be the ones to win, not the war, because war has nothing to do with humanity. War is something inhuman.
I do like working out. I feel my best when I work out, but you know, I'm human. I like to ride my bicycle and lift weights and hike. When I am diligently working out, ideally, I like to work out four days a week. If I can do that, I feel good about m...
Don't order any of the faerie food," said Jace, looking at her over the top of his menu. "It tends to make humans a little crazy. One minute you're munching a faerie plum, the next minute you're running naked down Madison Avenue with antlers on your ...
Being with him did strange, twisty things to my insides. My dragon instincts did not approve; they still didn't like this human with his amazing reflexes and bright, intense eyes. The eyes of a predator. But there was another part of me that couldn't...
What are the gifts given to we who live Below?" "Long life, health, strength, and happiness." "What is the curse of those who live Above?" "Short life, illness, weakness, and misery." "Is this fair?" "It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time...
He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through other eyes, to shuttle between the human and the natural perspective. Why might this be interesting, or even inspiring?...
Alice, winning means manipulation. It means taking people—people who may have helped you in the past, even people you care about—and using them without hesitation or regret. It means making decisions that would be viewed by any normal-thinking hu...
Do any of them realize that Simon Wolfgard is falling in love with Meg Corbyn? Monty wondered. Does Wolfgard understand his own response to the girl? What about Meg? How does she feel? What would the rest of the Others do if one of their kind did fal...
Dying is the fastest route to fame for an aspiring rock star. The dead man’s melodies become profound, acquiring deep mystery and rising into a realm beyond the reach of human criticism. In the stopping of a heartbeat, the rocker is transformed fro...
My name is Spar. I am neither called Rocky nor made of rock. I am a Guardian, one of those warriors who were summoned to battle against the Seven demons of the Darkness and to prevent their possible return to this human plane of existence. I consider...
It is related that Sakyamuni [the historical Buddha] once dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had spent twenty years of his human existence learning to w...
In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.
That enormously complex biological interactions are so flawlessly coordinated as to result in such obvious manifestations as human thought or the electrical activity that dries the heartbeat is as exciting to me -- actually more exciting -- than such...
When we have a clear idea of who we are and why we live, our lives become a journey. A story is created about our lives. And when the end comes, even if the story adds up to only one line, the story reaches a settled conclusion.