The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic p...
The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the...
We rightly scorn those who have no made use of their defects, who have not exploited their deficiencies, and have not been enriched by their losses, as we despise any man who does not suffer at being a man or simply at being. Hence no graver insult c...
We should fix ourselves firmly in the presence of God by conversing all the time with Him...we should feed our soul with a lofty conception of God and from that derive great joy in being his. We should put life in our faith. We should give ourselves ...
Looking from outside into an open window one never sees as much as when one looks through a closed window. There is nothing more profound, more mysterious, more pregnant, more insidious, more dazzling than a window lighted by a single candle. What on...
There are all sorts of losses people suffer - from the small to the large. You can lose your keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assist...
Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; th...
No matter how I want things to stay the same, no matter how discomforting change can be, I am stuck with the certainty that all molecules vibrate; all things are in constant motion; and change will happen. I can either accept that truth or suffer dep...
You have to understand that only the very worst end up here: the ones whose anger made them kill, and who felt no sorrow or guilt after the act; those so obsessed with themselves that they turned their backs on the sufferings of others, and left them...
Is it possible that our world still knows better how to deal with a bandit, a murderer, and insurrectionist than it knows what to do with the Prince of Peace? There is a sense in which an assassin's attempt on the pope's life is less shocking to our ...
Frank Costello: There is no need to remind you that if you don't find that cheese eating rat bastard in your department... it won't be me who suffers for it. Colin Sullivan: What I be any good at my job if I didn't fucking already know that? Frank Co...
[Smaug has been keeping the Arkenstone away from Bilbo throughout their talk, however he lets it fall within reach of Bilbo] Smaug: I am almost tempted to let you take it, if only to see Oakenshield suffer, watch it destroy him, watch it corrupt his ...
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? Attendee: Brought peace? Reg: Oh, peace - shut up! Reg: There ...
Judge: Monsieur le maire, I know you to be a kind man, but this... Jean Valjean: A kind? A kind man? When I was in prison I was as ignorant and mean and devious as these men here, but not kind. And I wish I could keep my mouth shut and let this poor ...
[the cartoon Knights are being chased by the animated Beast of Aaaaauuuugggggghhh] Narrator: And as the Black Beast lurched forward, escape for Arthur and his knights seemed hopeless, when suddenly, the animator suffered a fatal heart attack! [cut to...
[Barbara demands that Sheba must come with her to see her cat put down. Richard tells her to get back in the car so they can go see their son in his school play] Sheba Hart: [to Richard] Give me a minute, will you? I can handle this. Barbara Covett: ...
The Childlike Empress: It was the only way to get in touch with an earthling. Atreyu: But I didn't get in touch with an earthling! The Childlike Empress: Yes, you did. He has suffered with you. He went through everything you went through; and now, he...
Caden Cotard: My father died. They said his body was riddled with cancer and that he didn't know, he went in because his finger hurt. They said he suffered horribly, and that he called out for me before he died. They said that he said he regretted hi...
[first lines] Professor X: The future: a dark, desolate world. A world of war, suffering, loss on both sides. Mutants, and the humans who dared to help them, fighting an enemy we cannot defeat. Are we destined down this path, destined to destroy ours...
Oh, Mercédès, I have spoken your name with sighs of melancholy, with groans of pain and with the croak of despair. I have spoken it frozen with cold, huddled on the straw of my dungeon. I have spoken it raging with heat and rolling around on the st...
I am not frightened of my beliefs. If there is a God who is threatening me with damnation because I don't believe in Him, so be it. I've lived my life in conscience, and I will suffer damnation willingly in conscience against a tyrannical God who wou...
