I think the truth is, we are all racist, really, when it comes down to it. I think all of us have to check ourselves from time to time, and say, 'Look, that sort of attitude isn't good enough.' It takes discipline to keep our prejudices out.
We say, 'You may drink at the age of 21 but not at the age of 20.' Why? Because humans like to create terribly neat categories out of nature because it allows us a nice, tight social organization. The truth is, nature doesn't care that we like nice, ...
Beauty - what is beauty, forsooth? Form and color; that is, surface only. Fortune - what is fortune? Nothing is ever a pleasure or a real profit to him who has to labour for it. Truth - you die in the pursuit, and the sea beats the beach as it did a ...
Sadly, if President Obama is willing to ignore the pain of race-based discrimination and injustice so as to make whites comfortable - and this, after he has already been elected and the campaign is long over - then the likelihood he will ever speak t...
The truth be told, the World Trade Center was neither a very good work of architecture nor a very successful piece of urbanism. Its shortcomings were somewhat mitigated by the westward and southward expansion of the World Financial Center and Battery...
It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar - that I call an achievement.
Telling ourselves that fiction is in a sense true and at the same time not true is essential to the art of fiction. It's been at the heart of fiction from the start. Fiction offers both truth, and we know it's a flat-out lie. Sometimes it drives a no...
The truth is, what Americans enjoy about football is much of what makes the sport dangerous. However, I believe there must be a way to find the art of success and vitality in football, without the driving the level of impact that causes serious risk ...
Here is one of the great truths of the human condition: when you need Stayfree Maxi Pads to absorb the expectorants produced by your insulted body, you are in serious fucking trouble.
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls ...
But what do you say if you're asked a direct question and you can't tell the truth and you can't tell a lie?' 'You say “how very interesting” and change the subject.
Defeat anger, stop using it as a shield against truth, and you will find the compassion you need to forgive the people you love.
Pride begins when someone starts to assume that s/he is the custodian of all truths and attempts to be right in all circumstances, which is IMPOSSIBLE!
Truth has a certain sound to it. Your spirit will hear it clearly and leap inside of you and you will feel hope; even if your mind is still wrestling with all the pieces.
We went to places where we felt - like all lovers - that we were the first. We discovered the body of a lover has secrets that never end. We discovered that at times the same secrets reveal different truths.
He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.
The first trick to lying is to tell the truth as often as possible. If out start lying about everything, big and small, it becomes impossible to keep things straight and you'll get caught. Once suspicion is planted it becomes exponentially harder to ...
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you...
The truth, my friend, is an awesome thing, to be handled with wisdom and with courage denied to ordinary people. Most of us must make do with illusions. Or else -- or else we could not endure.
Betrayal. Lust. Secrecy. Devotion. I think we do these things to feel more alive. When the truth is that alive is alive -- you can feel it in anything, if you give it a chance.
But you know what? Peace is just an idea. There will never be peace on Earth, at least, not the kind of kumbaya-harmony people envision. There can be ceasefires and treaties, but we will never know true peace. That's the sad truth of the world.