Posted in Human Nature on April 29, 2007 | 1 Comment »
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
- William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)
While this sounds like the perfect explanation for why western countries have such high divorce rates, Maugham lived before that phenomenon began. [...]
Posted in Human Nature on April 28, 2007 | 2 Comments »
The first duty of love is to listen.
- Paul Tillich, United States theologian (born in Germany) (1886-1965)
Perhaps the world’s greatest need is for people to listen to each other.
Everyone agrees that love is a wonderful thing, that everyone should be loved and have someone to love. However, it’s rare to find places where people actually [...]
Posted in Spirituality on April 27, 2007 | No Comments »
Don’t wait for the Last Judgement. It takes place every day.
- Albert Camus, writer and philosopher (1913-1960)
What if that’s true? What if what we have been told conditions are like in an afterlife is really nothing more than our daily lives?
Some people live lives that they would not know how to improve if they knew [...]
Posted in Human Nature on April 26, 2007 | No Comments »
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts…perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-196
Lucky Alexander the Great! He died at age 26. Rather, lucky for his people.
It has been said that power corrupts. Most of us will have accepted that without thinking about it. There has been a [...]
Posted in World Politics on April 25, 2007 | No Comments »
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
- Ben Hecht
The primary purposes of newspapers are to convey information about events of the recent past, about upcoming events and to pass along enough advertising to make the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on April 23, 2007 | No Comments »
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
- Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)
Ask the citizens of any country on the brink of war or involved with war whether they want war [...]
Posted in Human Nature on April 22, 2007 | 1 Comment »
vFor all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner … on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. … That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very [...]
Posted in Human Nature on April 21, 2007 | No Comments »
“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth, and the music of the air.”
- Rabindranath Tagore
The Indian Nobel laureate would have known about such matters because he gained [...]
Posted in World Politics on April 20, 2007 | No Comments »
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
In theory, the representatives of the people in a democracy should be from the people, in order to best represent the values and beliefs of the people. In the USA, a government “of the people, by the people and for the [...]
Posted in Human Nature on April 19, 2007 | No Comments »
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.
- Samuel Johnson
The man who is convinced that he has enough friends eventually doesn’t.
Life is not about maintenance, holding the fort, maintaining the status quo. Life doesn’t work [...]
