The problem is you make the tricks look good. You are a brilliant acrobat, and a witty comedian. You are skillful. People want a fool to be foolish--trip on banana peels and grin and spout nonsense. These men want fools to make them feel better about...
The story of the American Civil War is essentially one of human beings––Northerners, Southerners, Blacks, Whites, men, women–– holding themselves accountable for the future of a nation.
Ask anyone and they'll most likely say their family is crazy, and if they don't say their family is crazy, their friends are crazy. That's because everyone is crazy after taking the mask off. People are most themselves when not really trying to fit i...
I don't remember what they said, only the fury of their words, how the air turned raw and full of welts. Later it would remind me of birds trapped inside a closed room, flinging themselves against the windows and the walls, against each other.
It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past.
Seated at the table, high in her firmament of gin, she looked critically at her brother and his wife, remembering some real or imagined injustice of her youth, for with any proximity the constellations of some families generate among themselves an as...
The way she’d whispered this told him she was thinking about some of her less favorite attributes and how she could never see herself viewing them as assets. Women were so fucking hard on themselves. “Bailey, you are who you are, like no other. E...
Men have always hated the wolf." "Why?" said the boy indignantly, suddenly looking very unhappy indeed. "Maybe because they see something in the wolf that they hate and fear in themselves. Maybe because wolves take their sheep and goats, as if we sho...
We don't like to admit it, but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. All truly civilized people – the ancients no less than us – have civilized themselves through the wilf...
Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves. By and large, if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.
p5-what they need..is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It this this quality..what may ...
His mind turned, gradually comprehending, memories flooding his awareness that were not his own: memories from the timelessness before the Being within him had fallen into this body; of a Homeworld and a Consortium of Light that had sent two Beings a...
He would argue with her about killing themselves; and explain how wicked people were; how he could see them making up lies as they passed in the street. He knew all their thoughts, he said; he knew everything. He knew the meaning of the world, he sai...
When a “runner” runs, they run. But in time the “runner” finds themselves in a no-brain situation. They are faced with the choice of living in pain from the separation from the twin soul, or returning and facing that deep love, working throug...
Women joked amongst themselves: 'Why do you think a bride cries on her wedding day? It's for the love that this marriage is putting an end to for all eternity. Men may think a woman has no past- "you were born and then I married you"- but men are foo...
Envy and resentment are terribly corrosive passions. To suffer at the sight or even the thought of others' enjoyment of life makes one a committed enemy of human happiness. Such people end up being practically a curse upon the human race. They vandal...
Everyone thinks that the old days were better, or that they were harder, and the modern times are chaotic and complex, or easier all around, but I think people's hearts have always been the same, happy and sad, and that hasn't changed at all. It's ju...
Conformity is a problem for many small groups. Members put a higher priority on cohesion than on coming up with a well-reasoned choice. They pressure dissenters, shield themselves from negative feedback, keep silent when they disagree ...
I know what the world is like. Nobody does anything unless there's something in it for themselves. But there are some people who do more than they have to for what they get in return, and those people are kind right to the heart.
To love someone is to desire and work toward their becoming the best version of themselves. The one person in all the universe who can do this perfectly for you is God.
Why do we feel sorry for people who can't travel? Because, unable to expand externally, they are not able to expand internally either, they can't multiply and so they are deprived of the possibility of undertaking expansive excursions in themselves a...