Yes, I'm a materialist. I'm willing to be shown wrong, but that has not happened — yet. And I admit that the reason I'm unable to accept the claims of psychic, occult, and/or supernatural wonders is because I'm locked into a world-view that demands...
Human stories are practically always about one thing, really, aren't they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . . . (quoting an obituary) 'There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that ever happens to man is natural, since his presence ...
Archivist: [about Yoona taking Somni to the lost-and-found room] Why didn't you report Yoona-939 to Seer Rhee the next day? Sonmi-451: I couldn't. Archivist: Why? Sonmi-451: Because she trusted me. Archivist: But your actions violated the Fifth Catec...
Nelson Chaney: All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting. Frank Hackett: We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get. Nelson Chaney: Well, I don't want any part o...
[at the police station] Slimey Lawyer: Attempted murder? Well, it's not like he killed someone. This is a clear violation of my client's civil rights. Bail Bondsman: Make it aggravated assault and I can make bail, in cash, now! Sgt. Reed: [angrily] L...
Kobayashi: Get your rest, Gentlemen. The boat will be ready for you on Friday. If I see you or any of your friends before then, Miss. Finneran will find herself the victim of a most gruesome violation before she dies. As will your father, Mr. Hockney...
I realize that violence is not more prevalent today than in previous periods of human history, but there is a difference. We have seen visionary standards adopted by the global community that espouse peace and human rights, and the globalization of i...
Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them to despise and undervalue the rights of private persons. The attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they display...
Collins and Morales represent a segment of society which, if attacked with the weapons society sanctions, one finds buffered by innumerable layers of law, bureaucracy, lies, evasions. They rest secure within their palaces, confident that they possess...
Look now -- in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his...
It is also interesting to observe that communal ownership violates every instinct of human nature. It destroys initiative, nullifies free agency, suppresses inventive exploration, minimizes the dignity of the individual and makes a god out of an abst...
Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred...
They can see everything they want to, but never forget that they cannot see beyond the distortion of their imagination where there is no color and everything exists in black and white. And that is why we will survive, because they do not have what is...
This idea (Taqwa)can be effectively conveyed by the term "conscience," if the object of conscience transcends it. This is why it is proper to say that "conscience" is truly as central to Islam as love is to Christianity when one speaks of the human r...
By the way, I haven't heard an 'I'm sorry' from you yet." My sense of grievance had overwhelmed my sense of self-preservation. I am sorry that the maenad picked on you." I glared at him. "Not enough," I said. I was trying hard to hang on to this conv...
For many years I have regarded the Pentateuch simply as a record of a barbarous people, in which are found a great number of the ceremonies of savagery, many absurd and unjust laws, and thousands of ideas inconsistent with known and demonstrated fact...
Part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly incompetent at life and in love. You have to teach them the very basics of emotional literacy. You have to teach them how to be there for you, and part...
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, intact for over 200 years, guaranteed that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, a...
The Grocery Checkout Proviso: The more things you care about, the more vulnerable you are. If you are part of that epicurean minority in this country that is still offended by violations of the English language, you will be slapped in the face every ...
- Rape is a unique crime, representing both a physical and psychological violation. More than with any other crime the victim can experience reporting rape as a form of revictimisation. l In no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny at...
The irony of the present day is, the more human rights jurisprudence seems to be fortified, the more there are human rights violations in newer and newer forms and some recidivism all due to the conflicting deductions of protecting even human rights ...
