Kira is evil ... There's no denying that ... But lately I've been starting to think of it more like this ... The real evil is the power to kill people. Someone who finds himself with that power is cursed. No matter how you use it, anything obtained b...
The revolutionary Terror, which is attacked for its revolutionary tribunal, its law of suspects and its guillotine, was a process welded to a regime of popular sovereignty in which the object was to conquer tyranny or die for liberty. This Terror was...
IT IS SAID that time is unrelated to everything else. It goes on and on, unnoticing of our actions, our falls, our triumphs. Who’s to care then, if time does not remember us? It flies by, fleeting, inattentive and disinterested in any occupants of ...
Was not Hypatia the greatest philosopher of Alexandria, and a true martyr to the old values of learning? She was torn to pieces by a mob of incensed Christians not because she was a woman, but because her learning was so profound, her skills at diale...
You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be...
Jesus was the original street healer. He traveled the streets of Israel on foot, staying wherever He found lodging. During His travels He told people the secrets of their hearts, healed all who were sick and demon-possessed, raised the dead and share...
It is easy in retrospect to see why he’d want to go. There are two women who are furious at him. To make one happy, he must take the subway across town and arrive on her doorstep. To make the other happy, he must wear for some infinitely long perio...
The moon, our own, earthly moon is bitterly lonely, because it is alone in the sky, always alone, and there is no one to turn to, no one to turn to it. All it can do is ache across the weightless airy ice, across thousands of versts, toward those who...
The thing that drew them to her was the thing that had made all of them come to Sexton in the first place: they were all outsiders, people on the fringe. And no one, it seemed, understood this better than Suz. She turned her difference into a source ...
Koschei the Deathless made a face as he tasted the wine. "It is far too sweet. Comrade Stalin fears bitterness and has the tastes of a spoiled princess. I savor bitterness--it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You...
What I'd show you is much more bizarre than anything we have looked at so far, and I warn you in advance that the first impulse will be to laugh. That's all right. Laugh if you must. Just don't take your eye off what you see, for even in your imagina...
How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or five of his books - gets to be in charge of the world's destiny? Or of the entire universe's?" If he's not very good, why didn't you stop at one?" Mrs. ...
I also remember that my father was one of the people who voted to get the Dauntless out of the factionless sector of the city. He said the poor didn’t need policing; they needed help, and we could give it to them. But I would rather not mention tha...
If we presuppose that Jesus and God are one—as many (but not all) Christians do—then we can also infer that Jesus Christ was omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent, and it is with this that the idea of sacrifice is lost. The martyrdom was pr...
Matthew kept hinting that his desire - for blood, chiefly- was so strong that it put everything else at risk. But vampires weren’t the only creatures who had to manage such strong impulses. Much of what qualified as magic was simply desire in actio...
Don't allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is 'only' your husband to see you. Depend upon it he has no use for faded tea-gowns and badly dressed hair, and he abhors the sight of curling pins as much as other men do. ...
I’ve never cheated on a lover. I’m faithful, always. But the war comes before anyone’s feelings. Every time.” Wow. Battle before love. Without a doubt, he was the most unromantic male she’d ever met. Even more so than her great-grandfather,...
The Jedi is a practitioner of mind mastery. He realizes that whatever they are experiencing, they are creating and that they can change their lives in an instant by changing their thoughts, their focus and the way they are observing and engaging the ...
I'm sorry you don't like coming back here," her mother often said, to cap whatever petty dust-up they'd had. How could Emily explain: it wasn't her mother or Kersey she'd disowned, but her earlier self, that strange, ungrateful girl who strove to be ...
The art of reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a gr...
It is a big deal to work with people who are different from you. And if you're white or of a higher class,no matter what race you are, you'll probably mess up. Maybe get yelled at. But there are worse things. Like keeping your dignity safe at home, w...
