The main objection to religious myths is that, once made, they are so difficult to destroy. Chemistry is not haunted by the phlogi...ston theory as Christianity is haunted by the theory of a God with a craving for bloody sacrifices. But it is also a fact that while serious attempts are constantly being made to verify scientific myths, religious myths, at least under Christianity and Islam, have become matters of faith which it is more or less impious to doubt, and which we must not attempt to verify by empirical means. Chemists believe that when a chemical reaction occurs, the weights of the reactants are unchanged. If this is not very nearly true, most of chemical theory is nonsense. But experiments are constantly being made to disprove it.... Chemists welcome such experiments and do not regard them as impious or even futile.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary t...o fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the... action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the ex...ceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Terrorism is an intolerant reaction to the hypertolerance of our societies, just as rape may be an intolerance of our boundless se...xual tolerance (paradoxically, the number of rapes increases with the degree of sexual liberation). It is second-generation violence--a reaction to the absence of violence. The same is true of the second-generation illnesses (cancer); they are a reaction to the hyperprotection of our bodies. When a woman turns off all signals of pleasure in your arms and leaves you no other solution but a disenchanted rape, no phantasy is of any use. But the same applies when her sexual demand is so great as to leave no room even for the illusion of rape.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An actor must communicate his author's given message--comedy, tragedy, serio- comedy; then comes his unique moment, as he is confr...onted by the looked-for, yet at times unexpected, reaction of the audience. This split second is his; he is in command of his medium; the effect vanishes into thin air; but that moment has a power all its own and, like power in any form, is stimulating and alluring.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he a... contemplative purely, he would not write.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and t...o contraries; and whatever contrarity is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Christianity was only a very strong and singularly well-timed Salvation Army movement that happened to receive help from an unusua...l and highly dramatic incident. It was a Puritan reaction in an age when, no doubt, a Puritan reaction was much wanted; but like all sudden violent reactions, it soon wanted reacting against.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »