Science has marched forward. But civilization’s values remain rooted in philosophies, religious traditions, and ethical frameworks devised many centuries ago. Even our economic system, capitalism, is half a millennium old. The first stock exchange ...
Alcohol does not a change a person’s fundamental value system. People’s personalities when intoxicated, even though somewhat altered, still bear some relationship to who they are when sober. When you are drunk you may behave in ways that are sill...
Becoming aware of the intense suffering of billions of animals, and of our own participation in that suffering, can bring up painful emotions: sorrow and grief for the animals; anger at the injustice and deception of the system; despair at the enormi...
You might have noticed that I have been sending you used books. I have done this not to save money, but to make a point which is that a used book, unlike a used car, hasn't lost any of its initial value. A good story rolls of the lot into the hands o...
As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn’t have it. It seemed to come later ...
You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the...
In the Christian religion, though perhaps not in any other, we frequently find a conception of god that is selfcontradictory and therefore corresponds to nothing. That is the conception formed by the following three propositions taken together: 1. Go...
And so I was scared. I was scared of my own sexual hunger, which felt so secretive and uncharted, and I was scared of the sexual hunger of boys, which felt so vivid and overt, and I was terribly uncertain of the relationships between sex and power an...
Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness; a review of research by the Corporation for National and Community Service shows that those who aid the causes they value tend to be happier and in better he...
She asked another question: "What does it matter if the rhinos die out? Is it really important that they are saved?" This would normally have riled me... but I had comes to think of her as Dr. Spock form Star Trek - an emotionless, purely logical cre...
There is nothing more to chasing after wealth than the wastage of a person’s noble life for that which has no value. Instead he could have earned a high rank (in Paradise) and everlasting bliss, but he lost this due to his craving after provision �...
I am told by people all the time that they simply do not have time to read and listen to all the material they have purchased or subscribed to. But time is democratic and just. Everyone has the same amount. When I choose to read with my mid morning c...
Perchik: There's a question... A certain question I want to discuss with you. Hodel: Yes? Perchik: It's a political question. Hodel: What is it? Perchik: The question of... marriage. Hodel: Is this a political question? Perchik: Well, yes. Yes, every...
Henrik Vanger: I apologize if you've been having financial problems at the magazine due to Mikael's absence. Erika Berger: We'll work through them. Henrik Vanger: Are you sure? Martin Vanger: How long do you think you can hang on? Six months? Erika B...
Cineplex Manager: What the hell is wrong with you? Enid: What? I was just joking around with the customers. It's my schtick. Cineplex Manager: Well, lose it! And why aren't you pushing the larger sizes? Didn't you get training about upsizing? Enid: Y...
Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it. The value judgement concealed in distinguishing one novel as literature and another as genre vanishes with the distinction. Every readable novel can give true pleasure. Every nove...
Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and desp...
The first thing was not to panic, because all panic does is escalate the problem. (This is the first mistake that people make in situations like this: the cats lose their pee and the humans lose their shit.)
Their musical ability and performance seems to derive from the past collective experience and presents itself in the individual unconscious today. Through it we tap into something eternal and it is apparent even in how they approach their playing. Pe...
We were bred of earth before we were bred of our mothers. Once born, we can live without mother or father, or any other kin, or any friend, or any human love. We cannot live without the earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's h...
The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as...
