July 17th, 2007 | Published in Life, Productivity, Quotes
“One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity there ain’t nothing can beat teamwork.”
–Seldom Seen Smith in Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), p. 368
July 16th, 2007 | Published in Life, Quotes, Religion, Science
What can’t be explained? I don’t think creatures can be explained. I don’t think lives can be explained. What we know about creatures and lives must be pictured or told or sung or danced. And I don’t think pictures or stories or songs or dances can be explained. The arts are indispensable precisely because they are so nearly antithetical to explanation.
–Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000), p. 117
July 15th, 2007 | Published in Biology, Life, Morality, Quotes, Religion
Character, then, isn’t what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn’t a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason that most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are really good at controlling our environment.
–Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point (2000), p. 163
July 14th, 2007 | Published in Animals, Nature, Quotes, Science, Sexuality
Rheobatrachus silus [is] an Australian frog that swallows its fertilized eggs, broods tadpoles in its stomach, and gives birth to young frogs through its mouth.
–Stephen Jay Gould, “Here Goes Nothing” in Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History (1991), p. 294
July 13th, 2007 | Published in Agriculture, Links
Dave Hage from the Star Tribune interviews Wendell Berry.
July 13th, 2007 | Published in Morality, Quotes, Religion
If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it?
–Benjamin Franklin, as quoted in H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (2000), p. 658
July 12th, 2007 | Published in Philosophy, Quotes, Religion, Science
If God is outside of nature, then science can neither prove nor disprove His existence. Atheism itself must therefore be considered a form of blind faith, in that it adopts a belief system that cannot be defended on the basis of pure reason.
–Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006), p. 165
July 11th, 2007 | Published in Morality, Politics, Quotes
“Sometimes the difference between individual and organized indignation is the difference between criminal and political action.”
–Brother Jack in Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man (1947), p. 223