If you drop assumptions, and can anticipate the possibilities, you can master the art of strategy. However, if you can only manipulate probability, you can only create a path to victory. But remember, plans can break down. The future is always a step...
There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called 'state security' in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stali...
When we understand who we are, and how our realities work, we can choose more consciously to shape our lives in an optimal way. Knowledge of oneself is the very key to a happy life. Happiness is not something outside of our own consciousness that nee...
They say instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of clichés, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising. However, who has not hung on a scripture, a quote, a statement, only...
Libertarians make no exceptions to the golden rule and provide no moral loophole, no double standard, for government. That is, libertarians believe that murder is murder and does not become sanctified by reasons of state if committed by the governmen...
He strained his ears, and the darkness felt heavier than before. Oppressive. “We’re hungry.” That came from behind him. “They smell tasty,” a voice to his left hissed. “I don’t like this,” Andrew said, feeling like the world around th...
In fact the flexibility of our memories makes it relatively easy because we can meld all these different memories together seamlessly to invent a new imaginary scene, one which we have never even contemplated before, let alone witnessed. The flexibil...
It is the illusion of magic and the magic of illusion that we are primarily interested in- not the privy tricks or the key to the secrets themselves. We seek the bafflement, the contradictions, the amusements, and the innumerable emotions that ripple...
Writers write because they're writers. Because their imaginations boil up inside of them, waiting to overflow into the written word. Ordinary people have little capacity for unyielding imagination, whereas the natural-born writer can do little but yi...
Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back. And it’s fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don’t believe in evolution, but if we educate a gen...
Even religious people are vulnerable to this longing. Those who belong to communities of faith have acquired a certain patience with what is sometimes called organized religion. They have learned to forgive themselves. They do not expect their instit...
There are all sorts of losses people suffer - from the small to the large. You can lose your keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assist...
Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence ...
Bye-bye. Nice knowing you. But if you are waiting for that perfect idea to strike like lightning during a dust storm (I live in New Mexico), you could be waiting a long time. Ideas are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I can’t walk to the bathroom without be...
Tony Wendice: At exactly three minutes to eleven, you'll enter the house through the street door. You'll find the key to this door under the stair carpet here. C.A. Swan: The fifth step? Tony Wendice: That's the one. Go straight to the window, and hi...
Rita Vrataski: If it's all the same to you, I'm tired, I'm in pain. I'd rather just start fresh. Lt. Col. Bill Cage: Tell you what. Take a few minutes. Coffee's ready. I'll look around for the keys. That's productive. Rita Vrataski: Ten minutes. Lt. ...
Mickey: [Mickey walks up to a disheartened Freddie Othello, dumped by Mary Hatch] What's the matter, Othello - jealous? Did you know there's a swimming pool under this floor? And did you know that *button* behind you causes this floor to open up? And...
[first lines] Leonard Shelby: [voiceover] So where are you? You're in some motel room. You just - you just wake up and you're in - in a motel room. There's the key. It feels like maybe it's just the first time you've been there, but perhaps you've be...
Morpheus: We've survived by hiding from them, by running from them. But they are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys. Which means that sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them. Neo: Someone? ...
Frank: Did you pump it? You can't pump it. That'll just flood it. Customer: Ya gotta pump it. Ya can't just hold it down. *That'll* flood it. Frank: You crazy? You pumped it? Customer: Well, ya can't hold it down. Frank: Just turn the key. Customer: ...
George Baines: [to Ada] Ada, wait. Wait. Do you know how to bargain? There's a way you can have your piano back. Do you want it back? Do you want it back? You see, I'd like us to make a deal. There's things I'd... like to do while you play. If you le...