In a sense, evolution adheres to the classic twelve-step program: it takes things one day at a time. It does not strive for perfection; it does not strive at all. There is no progress, no plans, no , or scale of nature, that ranks organisms from lowl...
The humble person is open to being corrected, whereas the arrogant is clearly closed to it. Proud people are supremely confident in their own opinions and insights. No one can admonish them successfully: not a peer, not a local superior, not even the...
Thus was this expedition finished...after having, by its event, strongly evinced this important truth; that though prudence, intrepidity and perseverence united are not exempted from the blows of adverse fortune, yet in a long series of transactions ...
Humans live a lot longer than dogs, and we don't suffer any penalty that I can see. We're superior in almost every way - they can smell better. But really, they can't drive cars, they can't do half the things we can. I don't understand why you can't ...
To be kind, honest and have positive thoughts; to forgive those who harm us and treat everyone as a friend; to help those who are suffering and never to consider ourselves superior to anyone else: even if this advice seems rather simplistic, make the...
I try--without success--to stop finding reasons for vanity in anything. When I happen to manage it nonetheless, I feel that I no longer belong to the mortal gang. I am above everything then, above the gods themselves. Perhaps that is what death is: a...
If we could honestly promise young couples that we knew how to give them offspring with superior character, why should we assume they would decline? Common sense tells us that if scientists find ways to greatly improve human capabilities, there will ...
In the voyeurism of Reality TV, the viewer's passivity is kept intact, pampered and massaged and force-fed Chicken McNuggets of carefully edited snippets that permit him or her to sit in easy judgment and feel superior at watching familiar strangers ...
Back in my days as a children's book editor, my superiors caught on to the fact that teenagers were using the Internet to gossip about each other, and thought it might be nifty to develop a series of books about an anonymous high-school blogger who g...
A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts. Most important of all, we should not assume that having to yield to th...
Mr. Wickham: And buckles. When it comes to buckles, I'm lost. Elizabeth Bennet: Dear, oh dear. You must be the shame of the regiment. Mr. Wickham: Oh, a laughing stock! Elizabeth Bennet: What DO your superiors do with you? Mr. Wickham: Ignore me, mos...
Deckard: [presents scale for examination] Fish? Cambodian lady: [examines scale with microscope] I think it was manufactured locally... finest quality... superior workmanship. There is a maker's serial number... 9-9-0-6-9-4-7-X-B-7-1. Interesting. *N...
Victimhood gives us great moral superiority and entitles us to unquestioning sympathy while exempting us from examining any single one of our actions. A victim is utterly devoid of responsibility or blame. This of course leaves us vulnerable as we wi...
The word of a powerful man is the truth.
A poor man is all schemes.
One man's meat is another man's poison.
Silence is music to a wise man.
Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change.
'Fringe' was the first time I realized that I could ever man up in a character and make this transition from being a boy or a young man into actually being a man.
Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man.
I always knew I was a man, always felt that I was a man, always wanted to be a man.
