The preacher then went on to criticise the attitude of religion towards science. "If there is still a feeling of hostility between... them ... it is no longer the fault of religion. There have been times when the church seemed afraid, but she is so no longer. Analyze, dissect, use your microscope or your spectrum till the last atom of matter is reached; reflect and refine till the last element of thought is made clear; the church now knows with the certainty of science what she once knew only by the certainty of faith, that you will find enthroned behind all thought and matter only one central idea,--that idea which the church has never ceased to embody,--I AM!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I always get back to the question, is it really necessary that men should consume so much of their bodily and mental energies in t...he machinery of civilised life? The world seems to me to do much of its toil for that which is not in any sense bread. Again, does not the latent feeling that much of their striving is to no purpose tend to infuse large quantities of sham into men's work?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give f...orth its spark.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one mi...ght say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are not commanded (or forbidden) to love our mates, our children, our friends, our country because such affections come natural...ly to us and are good in themselves, although we may corrupt them. We are commanded to love our neighbor because our "natural" attitude toward the "other" is one of either indifference or hostility.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The profession of magician, is one of the most perilous and arduous specialisations of the imagination. On the one hand there is t...he hostility of God and the police to be guarded against; on the other it is as difficult as music, as deep as poetry, as ingenious as stage-craft, as nervous as the manufacture of high explosives, and as delicate as the trade in narcotics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Any owner of cats will know of what I speak. Cats come at dawn to sit on your bed. They may not nip your nose or inhale your breat...h or make a sound. They simply sit there and stare at you until you open one eyelid and spy them there about to drop dead for need of feeding. So it is with ideas. They come silently in the hour of trying to wake up and remember my name. The notions and fancies sit on the edge of my wits, whisper in my ears and then, if I don't rouse, give more than cats give: a good knock in the head, which gets me out and down to my typewriter before the ideas flee or die or both. In any event, I make the ideas come to me. I do not go to them. I provoke their patience by pretending disregard. This infuriates the latent creature until it is almost raving to be born and once born, nourished.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our basic ideas about how to parent are encrusted with deeply felt emotions and many myths. One of the myths of parenting is that ...it is always fun and games, joy and delight. Everyone who has been a parent will testify that it is also anxiety, strife, frustration, and even hostility. Thus most major parenting- education formats deal with parental emotions and attitudes and, to a greater or lesser extent, advocate that the emotional component is more important than the knowledge.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We call it a Society; and go about professing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but... rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named "fair competition" and so forth, it is a mutual hostility.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »