We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.

We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.

It is not the fact that a person has riches that keeps them from heaven, but the fact that riches read more

It is not the fact that a person has riches that keeps them from heaven, but the fact that riches have them.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement read more

To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.

Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live read more

Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live with the natural psychological laws that govern us, understanding how to flow with life rather than struggle against it. We can return to our natural state of contentment.

The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means read more

The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the "best possible" result in each separate instance.

Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to read more

Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.

John Wesley said that if you give up the witchcraft, you must give up the Bible. He is right. The read more

John Wesley said that if you give up the witchcraft, you must give up the Bible. He is right. The choice is easy for me.

If someone were to prove to me -- right this minute -- that God, in all his luminousness, exists, it read more

If someone were to prove to me -- right this minute -- that God, in all his luminousness, exists, it wouldn't change a single aspect of my behavior.