Governments from the top fail as often as those from the bottom; and every great failure brings a sad social reaction, thousands and millions of helpless men laying down their lives in the unhappy process. Why may not statesmen study the past and avo...
«E lui ti dice che sei bella e tutt’a un tratto lo sei. Ma ho una notizia da darvi: è un gran casino, in realtà, un gigantesco incubo che vi esploderà in mano. Non avete idea del pasticcio in cui vi siete ficcate. L’amore non è un gioco. Le ...
Most of what presents itself to us in the marketplace as a product is in truth a web of relationships, between people, yes, but also between ourselves and all the other species on which we still depend. Eating and drinking especially implicate us in ...
Prayer is based on the remote possibility that someone is actually listening; but so is a lot of conversation. If the former seems far-fetcher, consider the latter: even if someone is listening to your story, and really hearing, that person will disa...
Living in filth was regarded by great numbers of holy men, who set an example to the Church and to society, as an evidence of sanctity. St. Jerome and the Breviary of the Roman Church dwell with unction on the fact that St. Hilarion lived his whole l...
The themes of Jesus' teaching are important, but of course he was more than a teacher. All the Gospels put the end of his life at the dramatic center of his story. Here all the hopes of Israel come together—he is the king of the Jews, the greatest ...
Moreover, we have seen enough by now to know that technological changes in our modes of communication are even more ideology-laden than changes in our modes of transportation. Introduce the alphabet to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, i...
One example is the familiar parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), which in some ways might be better called the parable of the elder brother. For the point of the parable as a whole - a point frequently overlooked by Christian interpreters, in...
What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear ...
By the 1920s if you wanted to work behind a lunch counter you needed to know that 'Noah's boy' was a slice of ham (since Ham was one of Noah’s sons) and that 'burn one' or 'grease spot' designated a hamburger. 'He'll take a chance' or 'clean the ki...
All of our faith and practice arise out of the drama of Scripture, the “big story” that traces the plot of history from creation to consummation, with Christ as its Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. And out of the throbbing verbs of this unfold...
12. Historians today rely on classics like Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Caesar’s Gallic War, and Tacitus’s Histories. The earliest copies we have for these date from 1,300, 900, and 700 years after the original writing, respect...
She’s kept her love for him as alive as the summer they first met. In order to do this, she’s turned life away. Sometimes she subsists for days on water and air. Being the only known complex life-form to do this, she should have a species named a...
Look, without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as People of Color, nothing about fanboy or fangirl culture would make sense. What I mean by that is: if it wasn't for race, X-Men doesn't sense. If it wasn't for the histor...
Dr. Arnim Zola: HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you tried to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom...
Lt. Aldo Raine: You know, where I'm from... Col. Hans Landa: Yeah, where is that, exactly? Lt. Aldo Raine: Maynardville, Tennessee. [pause] Lt. Aldo Raine: I've done my share of bootlegging. Up 'ere, if you engage in what the federal government calls...
[Inside prison laundry] Lamont: [to Derek] Don't fuck with me 'cause I'm the most dangerous man in this prison. You know why? 'Cause I control the underwear. Lamont: [They walk down to the underwear station] All right, pick 'em up over here and you s...
it was weird. Would you believe it if some supermodel called you up and told you she was your sister?’ Strike thought of his own bizarre family history. ‘Probably,’ he said.
Like any dissidents they were neurotic archivists. Agree, disagree, show no interest in or obsess over their narrative of history, you couldn't say their didn't shore it up with footnotes and research.
Nothing is as evanescent in history as the pansophic theories that flourish among the illuminati of all times under the bright sunlight of the latest scientific discoveries; and nothing can be more easily dismissed by later periods as mere speculatio...
Homo homini lupus [man is wolf to man]. Who in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?