Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.
The security officer smiled and said, ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ to me before I gave him ID.” “It’s a sick world, Eve.” He resisted taking her hand for another squeeze. “A sick, sad world.
Books act like a developing fluid on film. That is, they bring into consciousness what you didn’t know you knew.
Building a naval power takes generations, not so much to develop the necessary technology as to pass along the accumulated experience that creates good admirals.
The kind of president we need has little to do with ideology and more to do with a willingness to wield power to moral ends.
Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense.
That’s the funny thing about guns; even untrained hands can feel powerful using them. But take that gun away and you’re left with nothing but a coward whose only skill is how to blindly pull a trigger.
A brain is like a muscle, a serial connection that you should train everyday; if you don't use it, you loose it
What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you.
What is the secret of your serenity?” a student asked Sophia “Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable,” she replied.
Corporations [gained] direct access to what we may think of as our humanity, emotions, and agency but, in this context, are really just buttons.
nights and days came and passed and summer and winter and the sun and the wind and the rain. and it was good to be a little island a part of the world and a world of its own all surrounded by the bright blue sea.
Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.
Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrapy your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.
It was mild monsters like these that made Jack the Ripper go after young women, she decided: who could tolerate yielding the world to someone who behaved as if she had given birth to the very world herself?
You can have all the money in the world, one of the biggest mansions ever built, be one of the most famous people in the world, and still be as unhappy as Mariah Carey was. Money and fame don't make people happy. Only God does. Amen.
They told me Corrigan smashed all the bones in his chest when he hit the steering wheel. I thought, Well at least in heaven his Spanish chick'll be able to reach in and grab his heart.
Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon.
Tearing down the rest of the world won't make you happy. Look inside yourself. Because finding who you were meant to be? What you were put into this world to do? That's what fills the emptiness. It's the only things that can.
And it seemed increasingly obvious that the world would have to topple if he was to attain the glory that was rightfully his. They were consubstantial: glory and the capsized world.
Max, you're the last of the hybrids who still has...a soul.' ... 'She doesn't have soul,' Gazzy scoffed. 'Have you ever seen her dance?
