For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without kno...
Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the a...
I come by my alarmism honestly. I have learned this custom over the years as I have settled into being a true New Yorker. This is how we welcome foreigners to our shores. Because we are so often frightened by living here, we are annoyed and offended ...
When a person is evoked for who she is, not who she is not, the most often result will be the inner healing of her heart through the touch of affirmation. Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to t...
Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost. When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reli...
How do we seize the past? Can we ever do so? When I was a medical student some pranksters at the end-of-the-term dance released into the hall a piglet which had been smeared with grease. It squirmed between legs, evaded capture, squealed a lot. Peopl...
Ignore that nightmare in the bathroom. Just another ugly refugee from the Love Generation, some doom-struck gimp who couldn't handle the pressure. My attorney has never been able to accept the notion - often espoused by reformed drug abusers and espe...
Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism. Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be t...
I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experienc...
Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction,...
Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling that perso...
Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the...
Every nation needs more people who love liberty, fear mob rule, and hate tyranny with the consistent logic and passion of Alexis de Tocqueville. He is still quoted by presidential candidates, but too often he’s ignored by presidents, and therein li...
The truth of an orchestra is heard when they try to find their common notes before the show. All those strings and tubes and odd plunking things straining in different directions; an orchestra is merely a mob of single-minded maniacs who every so oft...
Like night dreams, stores often use symbolic language, therefore bypassing the ego and persona, and traveling straight to the spirit and soul who listen for the ancient and universal instructions embedded there. Because of this process, stories can t...
But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds ...
When standing in the middle of the marvelous mountains and deep forests, in the earthy smell of all beginnings and endings, I often find myself asking what I have if all my possessions were taken away. Without money, car, house; or power and fame, if...
Advances in communication technology foster a false fantasy of togetherness by transmitting the impression of contact- phone calls, faxes, e-mail- without its substance. And when a relationship is ailing from frank time deprivation, both parties ofte...
He hadn't meant to get so angry at Morgan. He didn't often get angry at other people. There was no sense in it. The person you were angry at was rarely ever repentant. Now, getting angry with yourself had some merit. It showed you had sense enough to...
Knowledge and book learning are not wisdom," said the captain. "Is this book wisdom?" asked Lucy, putting the manuscript back on the table. "It has some elements of wisdom in it, me dear," replied the captain. "I did not lead a very wise life myself ...
as Schulz himself has pointed out, Snoopy is capable of being 'one of the meanest' members of the entire Peanuts cast ... he is lazy, he is a 'chow-hound' without parallel, he is bitingly sarcastic, he is frequently a coward, and he often becomes qui...
