It seemed to me then - and to be honest, sir, seems to me still - that America was engaged only in posturing. As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of yo...
It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will no...
What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes, if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far from it: at the same time he is ...
Browns seek knowledge, Blues meddle in causes, and Whites consider the questions of truth with implacable logic. We all do some of it all, of course. But to be Green means to stand ready. In the Trolloc Wars, we were often called the Battle Ajah. All...
This war ends, then so do the taxpayer-funded contracts, the drumbeats in the media, the nice Combatant faces, and the patriotic cause to lull the civilians and shame the dissenters. The other thing that comes to an end is all the justification for w...
There are plenty of atheists in foxholes. What I don't see are Christians in foxholes. If a Christian soldier takes a bullet to the knee, he will undoubtedly first call for a medic, not a priest. Reliance on god is typically only available when a pro...
As soon as he said it was okay to do engineering, that really freed me up. My psychological block was really that I didn't want to start a company. Because I was just afraid. In business and politics, I wasn't going to be a real strong participant. I...
Some mediocre ladies in influential positions are usually embarrassed by an unusual book and so prefer the old familiar stuff which doesn't embarrass them and also doesn't give the child one slight inkling of beauty and reality. This is most discoura...
Wenn Imam Ali ibn 'Alawi "Assalamu 'alaika ayyuhan-nabiyyu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh!" sagte, so hörte er den Propheten (der Frieden und Salah gelten ihm) antworten: "Wa 'alaikumus-salam!" Der Imam wiederholte dann den Friedensgruß, bis er den P...
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present...
The primitive tribes permitted far less individual freedom than does modern society. Ancient wars were committed with far less moral justification than modern ones. A technology that produces debris can find, and is finding, ways of disposing of it w...
Jesus’ incarnation and ministry thus present us with the final critique of strategic religion; on the cross, where we see God almost deliberately ‘lose’ – as if duped into being strung up by a scheming, fearful group of clerics – we see the...
Here is a boy who was waiting to be punished. But then, unexpectedly, he ¯nds that his fault has been overlooked or forgiven and at once the world reappears in brilliant colors, full of delightful prospects. Here is a soldier who was waiting, with a...
Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the...
Superior insight into history used to be exhilarating for radicals: if we can see more clearly than the Enemy what is really going on, then we can use this knowledge to advance values. But now the clearer one's insight, the more numbed one becomes. T...
For centuries, pilgrims have travelled to Ayodhya identifying it as a birthplace of Ram. But the exact location is a subject of dispute and political turmoil. Ever since colonial times, Hinduism has felt under siege, forced to explain itself using Eu...
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not...
I believe - I daily find it proved - that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame, or through strengthening peril. We err; we fall; we are humbled - then we walk more c...
The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misf...
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, and their resp...
Tim Curley: Standard procedure is that he has to check in with us every day, he might miss a day or two here and there, it was three weeks ago, we can't tell you because we don't know, there's war going on in the mafia family where Joe is undercover,...
