The Supreme Court is composed of two groups known as the Infallible Five and the Furious Four. The first group writes those majority decisions on patent law that have brought patent lawyers to their present condition. The second groups writes the dis...
Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn’t as much pressure to present a respectable exterior. And secondly, there was no social...
The past is but an untraceable footfall It appears in intervals and pushes us back in time, In those moments of grief and then suddenly vanishes. It’s often dark and ruthless. It baffles our thoughts and seizes our peace of mind. By making us recol...
When you see evil do not form ideas that are in the likeness of that evil; do not think of the evil as bad, but try to understand the forces that are back of that evil—forces that are good in themselves, though misdirected in their present state. B...
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once o...
When we refuse to work with our disappointment, we break the Precepts: rather than experience the disappointment, we resort to anger, greed, gossip, criticism. Yet it's the moment of being that disappointment which is fruitful; and, if we are not wil...
Each day we have to decide to choose to have an awesome life. We are responsible for our own fate and cannot blame circumstances for our failures. It is in our own best interest to make choices that are going to create the life we desire and be accou...
Emilio Barzini: [during a meeting with the Five Families] Times have changed. It's not like the Old Days, when we can do anything we want. A refusal is not the act of a friend. If Don Corleone had all the judges, and the politicians in New York, then...
It's likely that every day presents an opportunity for you to practice radical hospitality to someone with whom you cross paths. There is no shortage of people who could use the fit of a caring, welcoming person in their life. How awesome would it be...
Not once not twice but at least a dozen times i have advanced an idea to people who thought i was either dreaming , imagining the impossible or just in over my head. When the birth of a rare idea lives to see the light of day it is astounding . I hav...
In fact, Shakespeare was right when he said ‘twice a babe once a man’. We are born into the world as helpless, weak infants, and some of us end our lives as vulnerable, frail adults, unable to speak coherently, or do even the simplest tasks.
See, happiness at work is an emotion. It comes from inside of you, and like all other emotions it is difficult to define, but inescapable once it’s present. Or not present. Can you define love? Poets have tried for thousands of years and aren’t g...
I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion [...]. If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admi...
Gamache watched the old poet. He knew what was looming behind the Mountain. What crushed all before it. The thing the Hermit most feared. The Mountain most feared. Conscience. ... Which is why, Gamache knew, it was vital to be aware of actions in the...
Laziness acknowledges the relation of the present to the past but ignores its relation to the future; impatience acknowledge its relation to the future but ignores its relation to the past; neither the lazy nor the impatient man, that is, accepts the...
Of course, in television's presentation of the "news of the day," we may see the Now...this" mode of discourse in it's boldest and most embarrassing form. For there, we are presented not only with fragmented news but news without context, without con...
If you want to know my story, you have to go back to the beginning. Not the beginning-beginning, but about nine months later. You see, I was born as a poor farm boy. Believe it or not, my parents were so poor that they didn’t even own a farm. Nope....
Dear Natalie, In a recent study conducted by jarodkintz.com, nine out of ten people were more likely to say yes when the salesperson wore pants. The curious thing is that the prospective customers were being sold a foreskin, and only one out of ten p...
When Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow meet, only Today gets to shake hands twice. That makes Today twice as important as the other two. But it also means that Today must be careful, because who knows whether Yesterday or Tomorrow washed their hands aft...
Everything is unfolding based on causes and conditions. Our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. If we cling now, we suffer later. If we let go and respond with compassion or friendliness, we create happiness an...
So what did you do when death came to your house? We continued in the same way as before. What is that, a failure of the imagination? Are you in denial? This is not wholly true; we continue in the same way as before but in parenthesis. My thinking ha...