It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." ~ Jane Austin. Arguably one of the best opening lines in literary history (I said ARGUABLY doesn't mean I want to argue). However, ...
It is well known that geometry presupposes not only the concept of space but also the first fundamental notions for constructions in space as given in advance. It only gives nominal definitions for them, while the essential means of determining them ...
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...
Biblical eschatology fundamentally challenges the "official" scientific idea that the universe will end in a violent heat death, and instead that the cosmos will be set free from its decadence. It calls us to consider the sobering similarities betwee...
[about his wife] Frank Alexander: She was very badly raped, you see! We were assaulted by a gang of vicious, young, hoodlums in this house! In this very room you are sitting in now! I was left a helpless cripple, but for her the agony was too great! ...
First Man at Auto Shop: Here's where the infant's head went through the wind-shield. Three points. Man #2 at Auto Shop: The teenager's braces are still wrapped around the backseat ashtray. Might make a good anti-smoking ad. First Man at Auto Shop: Th...
I kept glancing at him and away from him, as if his green eyes were hurting me. In modern parlance he was a laser beam. Deadly and delicate he seemed. His victims had always loved him. And I had always loved him, hadn't I, no matter what happened, an...
Why is contemporary China short of works that speak directly? Because we writers cannot speak directly, or rather we can only speak in an indirect way. Why does contemporary China lack good works that critique our current situation? Because our curre...
When that part of the woman meets with a man, all the flowers in the world suddenly bloom! All the birds of the world gather together and sing. The entire world turns golden, and your body becomes completely relaxed and you're not sure whether you're...
A crude age. Peace is stabilized with cannon and bombers, humanity with concentration camps and pogroms. We're living in a time when all standards are turned upside-down, Kern. Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted a...
How could I have thought that I needed to cure myself in order to fit into the 'real' world? I didn't need curing, and the world didn't, either; the only thing that did need curing was my understanding of my place in it. Without that understanding - ...
It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same miry afternoon.… There is much good in it; there are many good and true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is that it is a world wrapped up in too much ...
If you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to contr...
But it's not enough. I don't look human. If I went outside, people would scream at the sight of me. Looks matter to most people. That's reality in the world." "Not my world." I petted Pilot. "I like your world, Will, but it doesn't have a very big po...
She was completely alone in the world. There was no one at all for her. No one in the world who cared whether she lived or died. Sometimes the horror of that thought threatened to overwhelm her and plunge her down into a bottomless darkness from whic...
Nationalist (forces around the world) could now more readily communicate and share their grievances, viewing themselves as similar groups, engaged in a common struggle for greater autonomy against control exerted from London or Paris.
When you run up against someone else’s shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible? No. Then don’t ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them. The same for someone vicio...
Is it too much to ask, to live in a world where our human gifts go toward the benefit of all? Where our daily activities contribute to the healing of the biosphere and the well-being of other people?
It is the cry of the separate self, ‘What about me?’ As long as we keep acting from that place, it doesn’t matter who wins the war against (what they see as) evil. The world will not deviate from its death-spiral.
In today's world, it is tempting to follow suit and artificially numb the emotions you don't want while inducing the ones that you do want. The problem is that pushing pleasure into your veins will not get you out of quicksand, nor will blocking pain...
The only other white people we saw during the three days we stayed there were a German couple intent on taking pictures of their stuffed sheep in a variety of locations around the world.
