Rumors had their own classic epidemiology. Each started with a single germinating event. Information spread from that point, mutating and interbreeding—a conical mass of threads, expanding into the future from the apex of their common birthplace. E...
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death ...
One of the most ugly aspects of life in Communist China during the Mao Zedong era was the Party’s demand that people inform on each other routinely and denounce each other during political campaigns. This practice had a profoundly destructive effec...
Before I lost my father, I never understood the rituals surrounding funerals: the wake, the service itself, the reception afterward,the dinners prepared by well-meaning friends and delivered in plastic containers, even the popular habit of making pos...
Even though peak experiences might show us the truth and inform us about why we are training, they are essentially no big deal. If we can't integrate them into the ups and downs of our lives, if we cling to them, they will hinder us. We can trust our...
After consciously enduring a twelve-inch knitting needle navigated into the unseen recesses of my pelvis and almost passing out at the sensation of my hip inflating with fluid and somehow clinging to my sanity through the hour-long, migraine-inducing...
And after the briefest flowering of understanding, my own generation had grown complacent. At some level, we must have started taking it for granted that the way the universe worked was now obvious to any child ... even though it went against everyth...
And when you are criticized, as you will be, remind your critics that you have the right to speak your mind. And if they shout you down, as they probably will, then inform them that since they insist on being asses, you will henceforth communicate wi...
The only thing you should have to do is find work you love to do. And I can't imagine living without having loved a person. A man, in my case. It could be a woman, but whatever. I think, what I always tell kids when they get out of class and ask, 'Wh...
Burke's admonition--"The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations"--never seems to have occurred to Hayek. The Arnoldian ideal of the disint...
I’ve come to think that flourishing consists of putting yourself in situations in which you lose self-consciousness and become fused with other people, experiences, or tasks. It happens sometimes when you are lost in a hard challenge, or when an ar...
John Milton: Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own p...
Colonel Rolland: [dictating a letter] The plot describes above constitutes, in my view, the most dangerous single conception that the terrorists could possibly have devised to endanger the life of President De Gaulle. If the plot exists as described,...
Casson: No wonder our people are giving up, they've lost faith! Montclair: We've failed them every single time! Col. Rodin: We won't fail them again! Casson: What can we do? We're paralyzed! Montclair: Every cop in France has memorized our faces! Inf...
Trainee officer: [during an information training session] Hey, Coordinator! Capitão Nascimento: Yes, my sir? Trainee officer: Soldier 05 is sleeping. Capitão Nascimento: Hey Soldier 05! [hands 05 a grenade, 05 takes the grendade] André Matias: Yes...
Walt Simonson: Buddy, here's the warrant. The court order's in there for the wiretap, the judge gave you sixty days on it. Tell Doyle that Mulderig and Klein will sit in for the Feds. They'll make all the buys. Be sure you keep them informed of every...
Stanley Goodspeed: You broke out, let me see if I can get this straight, down the incinerator chute, on the mine car, through the tunnels to the power plant, under the steam engine - that was really cool by the way - and into the cistern through the ...
Interrogator: Do you know why you're here, Evey Hammond? Evey Hammond: No please... Interrogator: You've been formally charged with three counts of murder, the bombing of government property, conspiracy to commit terrorism, treason, and sedition. The...
Werewolf change was never pleasant. That was one of the reasons pack members still referred to it as a curse, despite the fact that, in the modern age of enlightenment and free will, clavigers chose metamorphosis. The change comprised a good deal of ...
When it is recalled that until the Christian era the underworld was never regardded as a hostile area, that all gods were useful and essentially friendly to man despite occasional lapsesl when we see the steady methodical inculcation into humanity of...
Maybe that's what happens with age, I thought. All your life you force yourself to forget people who have hurt you, but as you get older and weaker their memory surfaces again, like a bubble in the water. You have to surrender, because you feel to ti...
