Our current contempt for poverty stems from information overload--this is the enabler---our over education as privileged people-- perhaps the real culprit--and our secret assurance that we ourselves owe no one anything beyond the exhausting daily rou...
I looked inward at my heart. And indeed, there too, the criss-cross corsetry was slackened and gaping. I was all undone. Potentially, I could spill. Or tangle. And so I began to tug at my own heartstrings, pulling them up tight until there was just t...
Another very good test some readers may want to look up, which we do not have space to describe here, is the Casimir effect, where forces between metal plates in empty space are modified by the presence of virtual particles. Thus virtual particles ar...
This isn't to deny that there were fierce arguments, at the time and ever since, about the causes and goals of both the Civil War and the Second World War. But 1861 and 1941 each created a common national narrative (which happened to be the victors' ...
It were indeed to be wish'd that our art had been less ingenious, in contriving means destructive to mankind; we mean those instruments of war, which were unknown to the ancients, and have made such havoc among the moderns. But as men have always bee...
From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I was different I was not raised; as others were My passions from a common sense of ideas. From the same source I have taken Thus, this is art that connects mankind My pains; I could not awaken Re...
To be content in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed unmanly, and therefore we think that to love light and find knowledge must always be right. Yet wherever pride has any share in the work, even knowledge and light may be ill pursued. Knowledge i...
Chemistry has the same quickening and suggestive influence upon the algebraist as a visit to the Royal Academy, or the old masters may be supposed to have on a Browning or a Tennyson. Indeed it seems to me that an exact homology exists between painti...
Many lessons can be learned from the history of Western civilization, but one of them is especially clear. Lack of involvement in the affairs of one's society can lead to a sense of powerlessness. In an age that is often crisis-laden and chaotic, an ...
It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has...
The rose, however, made us girls somewhat fainthearted, because it really was something we felt mattered, the white bridal dream with the wedding bouquet and the kiss from the man who was to be ours forever. But then Laura said that the lady who had ...
Nothing is more important to human beings than an ecologically functioning, life sustaining biosphere on the earth. It is the only habitable place we know of in a forbidding universe. We all depend on it to live and we are compelled to share it; it i...
After the birth of printing books became widespread. Hence everyone throughout Europe devoted himself to the study of literature... Every year, especially since 1563, the number of writings published in every field is greater than all those produced ...
Prince Eric: Well, what do you say? Would you like to join me on a tour of my kingdom tomorrow? [Ariel nods with delight] Grimsby: Wonderful! Now, let's eat before this crab wanders off my plate. [He puts his fork down onto his plate and is surprised...
Frodo: Before you came along, we Bagginses were very well thought of. Gandalf: Indeed? Frodo: Never had any adventures or did anything unexpected. Gandalf: If you're referring to the incident with the Dragon, I was barely involved. All I did was give...
[a knock at the door] Alexander Rance: It's open. Top marks for speed, no marks for cookery. [holding plate with egg] Alexander Rance: What, may I ask, do you call this? Michael Sullivan: Put it down. Alexander Rance: Mr. Sullivan! Michael Sullivan: ...
Edward Ferrars: Miss Dashwood... Elinor, I must speak to you. There is something of great importance that I need to, eh... t-tell you... a-about my, eh, education. Elinor Dashwood: Your education? Edward Ferrars: Yes. It w-was conducted, eh, oddly en...
Laisha had got a glimpse of the vast ocean that lay before her. She could either eatch it recede from her sight or plunge into it. It was not possible to take the risk of plunging headlong into the ocean. No one viewed the ocean to be drowned into it...
We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children o...
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unju...
It is indeed a song of steps. And as I have often said to you, these steps are not made to descend but to ascend. The questioner wishes then to ascend; and where does he wish to ascend if not to heaven? What does this mean—to ascend to heaven? Does...
