We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest -- which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
Ethics versus Morals. Ethical behavior may be defined as acting after thinking about what would produce the greatest good for the greatest number affected. Morals are a codification of prior ethical decisions, simplified into easy-to-grasp rules. Morals exist because most people are very uncomfortable with the uncertainties of attempting to figure out what the right course of action might be, and most and are reluctant to take responsibility for having made mistakes. Being ethical means making decisions based on inadequate data and acting anyway. Ethical actions frequently work out badly; the actor has no one to blame for the results but themselves. Acting ethically while still desiring certainties means being uncomfortable. Moral acts also often work out badly. The apparent advantage to being moral is that when a moral act works out badly no one is to blame because the actor did what was supposed to be done. Being moral is comfortable because a moral person always knows what should be done, did it and is not to blame for the outcomes.
It's a kind of theater. Sometimes, a car will fly by in the air.
Anything you put in that book, any little change you make, has huge implications not only for psychiatry but for pharmaceutical marketing, research, for the legal system, for who's considered to be normal or not, for who's considered disabled.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make -- leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone -- we all dwell in a house of one room -- the world with the firmament for its roof -- and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.
The one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve.
After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned. For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done.
Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
If those in charge of our society -- politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television -- can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Palm Pre+ (Verizon) for me today. I've been carrying a Palm Centro as my combination cell phone/calendar/contacts/clock/music system/data caddy for the past year and a half or so. From the little I've played with it so far, the Pre does *not* feel like a Palm. It does feel like a slick high-tech device.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
I need a better word than unprecedented or amazing to describe what's happened with the text-message program.
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?" But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
