But the greatest cause of verbicide is the fact that most people are obviously far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them. Hence the tendency of words to become less descriptive and more evaluative; the...
A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useles...
On the other side of the ledger stood the fact that fotitude was useless against it (liquor). Even the mightiest potsman, a paladin who could match tankards with a whole alehouse of swag-bellies Falstaffs and outquaff the parcel of them, would see hi...
Peter stood back up. 'Well, that was a perfectly useless conversation,' he said with a sigh. Now, there is a wonderful thing in this world called 'foresight.' It is a gift treasured above all others because it allows one to know what the future holds...
Only after Mom went missing did you realize that her stories were piled inside you, in endless stacks. Mom's everyday life used to go on in a repeating loop, without a break. Her everyday words, which you didn't think deeply about and sometimes dismi...
The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics...
People like to make up stories about things they don’t understand, so there are over a thousand myths about the moon. One legend claims that on the surface is everything that was wasted here on Earth: misspent time, squandered wealth, broken vows, ...
As a matter of fact, when it comes to seeing, men display two tendencies: they see what they wish to see, what is useful to them, what is agreeable. The second is the tendency toward inhibition; they do not see what they do not wish to see, what is u...
The fatigue I've gathered year after year and stored inside now heaves a muted cry of helplessness. Nothing but fatigue, rounding my shoulders, heavier than ever on this late autumn day with a useless sun, a world of unforgiving disasters. So many st...
It is useless to say you have no time. There is plenty of time, if men will employ it. Time may be short, but time is always long enough for prayer. Daniel had the affairs of a kingdom on his hands, and yet he prayed three times a day. David was rule...
Happiness doesn't lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home...
There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed OK at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of conseque...
Vinny Gambini: I won my first case, you know what this means... Mona Lisa Vito: Yeah, you think I'm gonna marry you. Vinny Gambini: What, now you're not gonna marry me? Mona Lisa Vito: No way. You can't even win a case by yourself, you're fuckin' use...
Mark: ...i remember my dad had all this cash. Mark: Even tho' cash was completely useless. Mark: i remember the ground was soft. Mark: i looked down and i was standing on all these people, like a carpet. Mark: No-one could run, all you could was clim...
The world has its own ways of treating us like what we will never be, but want to be. It relinquishes its grip on our souls while lulling us with the songs of freedom and conquest of beauty. It magnifies every tiny bit of something useless over an un...
He tried to explain and to convince. He knew, while he spoke, that it was useless, because his words sounded as if they were hitting a vacuum. There was no such person as Mrs. Wayne Wilmot; there was only a shell containing the opinions of her friend...
Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless....
So you don't think the government is responsible for anything?" "Oh, it's responsible," Rafferty says. "It's responsible for the sloppiness and imprecision of the War on Terror, for example. It's responsible for taking people's tax dollars and spendi...
How do you get on with your father ' Beleth asked. 'Very well ' Pyrgus answered loyally although it was far from the truth. 'I ate mine ' Beleth told him. 'He got old and feeble and useless but he wanted to hold on to power. So I took steps. Tasted d...
In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the prophets speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world...
The key to a good life is to balance the good and evil rather than trying to get rid of all evils because if you get rid of all your evils, you would also lose all your desire and ability to do good. In other words, you become neutral like neutron an...
