The emotion of disgust evolved initially to optimize responses to the omnivore's dilemma. Individuals who had a properly calibrated sense of disgust were able to consume more calories than their overly disgustable cousins while consuming fewer danger...
Moral matrices bind people together and blind them to the coherence, or even existence, of other matrices. This makes it very difficult for people to consider the possibility that there might really be more than one form of moral truth, or more than ...
In 1829 Rossini was at an age which has often proven critical in the lives of musicians, painters and writers. Lapses into silence far more complete than Rossini's, creative failures, suicides, and unanticipated deaths have been common in the middle ...
Like attracts like. It'll surprise you as long as you live. Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow something will happen, something you couldn't plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way to your ...
Si tratta di valori[i diritti umani]che non possono essere imposti da truppe straniere. Nessuna nazione può donare la libertà a un'altra. la libertà è un bene che deve essere conquistato dal popolo, un seme che crese e dà frutti solo quando vien...
The offspring cannot rely on its parents for disinterested guidance. One expects the offspring to be preprogrammed to resist some parental manipulation while being open to other forms. When the parent imposes an arbitrary system of reinforcement (pun...
The fire alarm went off. Fire engines came racing; we all rushed out on the gravel drive, everyone thinking it was us. In fact, one of the elderly residents of Saltram had left a pan on the oven in her flat. Apparently this happens all the time. The ...
We've hired the calmest babies in the world to play the hysterical Thomas. One did finally start to cry but stopped every time Chris [Newman (assistant director)] yelled 'Action'. ... Babies smiled all afternoon. Buddhist babies. They didn't cry once...
Obedience is the fruit and proof of love; and the words of the Master are suggestive, "If a man love Me he will keep My words" (John 14:23). One has forcibly remarked, "When people speak of 'essentials' and 'non-essentials' they generally mean by the...
The thing I've noticed about life is that it just keeps coming at you. And it can be a real bummer. What you need to remember is that you're not alone. You've got friends and family. That's how we get by. We talk and share and eat cake and giggle in ...
Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without the...
Desire acts as a honey trap to the unwary male, luring him into unworthy and catastrophic enterprises. The beauty of the Narnian witches isn't ancillary to their evil, but integral to it, one of the weapons in their arsenal. Evil must, after all, app...
If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they should throw i...
U nekom trenutku sve priče postaju iste, kaže pripovedač, i sve vode do istog cilja. Veština je u tome, kaže pripovedač, da se onaj koj sluša ili čita priču navede na pomisao da je priča koju upravo sluša ili čita ipak drugačija od ostal...
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it this brokenness inside me might start healing. Out here its like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself if I could just come in I swear I'll leave. Won't take nothing but a memory f...
Seeing your mother naked is not something you easily recover from. Seeing your mother naked and jumping from one side of a king-sized bed to the other with a nurse's hat on while your father, who is also naked, is chasing her with a bandanna around h...
Do you know what the imagination is, Susan?" The child nodded sagely. "That's when you see things that aren't really there." "Well, not exactly," said Kris with a smile. "No -- to me the imagination is a place all by itself. A very wonderful country....
I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorat...
We checked our bags and got on line with some of our fellow passengers. Judging from the looks of them, it was clear that they were members of a different income bracket from the people I preferred to surround myself with. But since I also wasn't fro...
Seeing my mother get back to her studies was all the proof I needed that a chain of emotion can persuade when one forged of logic won't hold. But more important was her example that a surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence. It was s...
There were no actual villains, just inertia. The administration genuinely wanted more diversity for reasons of its image as well as fairness, notwithstanding the cranky alumni letters in The Daily Princetonian. ... Hiring committees had not a clue wh...