One day at Fenner's (the university cricket ground at Cambridge), just before the last war, G. H. Hardy and I were talking about Einstein. Hardy had met him several times, and I had recently returned from visiting him. Hardy was saying that in his li...
One can fully own a manufactured thing—a toaster, say, or a pair of shoes. But in what reasonable sense can one fully "own" and have "rights" to do whatever we want to land, water, air, and forests, which are among the most valuable assets in human...
Apocalyptic saucer cults have started to spring up all over America. One small group, which has been receiving messages from outer space via Lake City housewife Mrs. Marian Keech, becomes the subject of a research team led by psychologist Leon Festin...
I was recalling that other world in which it had thrilled me, in a way, the surprise of thinking that I could be a person who would betray Daniel. Now I wondered if Daniel could surprise himself, could surprise me, by being such a person too. Would h...
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and ...
My only companion from the outside world during nineteen years of isolation has been my personal hatred of Thursday Next. It's kind of like the old me suddenly taking over, and I promised myself that this was how I would act if I ever saw you.' 'I ha...
If you were determined to get enjoyment out of every moment, you would learn to do whatever it took. What it takes is not listening to negative thoughts, yours or anyone else's. Disregarding negative thoughts isn't hiding our head in the sand, but si...
Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true. The whole defence of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action required or ...
Do you wanna go out for lunch? In celebration?” I asked and then touched my lips in thought. “Or we could swing by the store and get something really good for dinner?” Wesley glanced at me sideways with a puzzled expression I couldn’t figure ...
Suddenly I came out of my thoughts to notice everything around me again-the catkins on the willows, the lapping of the water, the leafy patterns of the shadows across the path. And then myself, walking with the alignment that only comes after miles, ...
The human life cycle no less than evolves around the box; from the open-topped box called a bassinet, to the pine box we call a coffin, the box is our past and, just as assuredly, our future. It should not surprise us then that the lowly box plays su...
When compared to the fact that he might very well be dead by this time tomorrow, whether he was courageous or not today was pointless, empty. When compared to the fact that he might be dead tomorrow, everything was pointless. It just didn't make any ...
the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught...
We like to think of individuals as unique. Yet if this is true of everyone, then we all share the same quality, namely our uniqueness. What we have in common is the fact that we are all uncommon. Everybody is special, which means that nobody is. The ...
I used to walk out, at night, to the breakwater which divides the end of the harbor form the broad moor of the salt marsh. There was nothing to block the wind that had picked up speed and vigor from its Atlantic crossing. I’d study the stars in the...
Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The twenty-first century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battl...
I travelled across the world. From the ruins of New York, to the fusion mills of China, right across the radiation pits of Europe. And everywhere I went I saw people just like you, living as slaves! But if Martha Jones became a legend then that's wro...
The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was ...
I want you to judge me without thinking about it. I want you to give me advice without considering my opinion. I want you to expecting anything without the need to trust me. I want you to decide for me with all the care in the world. I want you to he...
Sorry, but I have to be who I am. Everyone else is taken... So be your self! Speak your truth - if there are people around you who tempt you with non-existence blast through that and give them the full glory of who you are. Do not withhold yourself f...
The banana flavour of his accidental conception, and the banana theme of his accidental death, now all seemed to conspire against him and rather suggest the universe, Mr Fate or whoever did have some sort of master plan after all. Despite all his ear...
