March 2012
24 posts
Your odds of winning the lottery are like 1 in 175,000,000. Which means that it would be more rational to use any lottery spendings and apply them to a million-dollar term life insurance policy on your spouse, on the much more likely chance he or she will die in a car accident (lifetime odds 1 in 88).
“Exactly two things have made air travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the...”
– Bruce Schneier (via ayjay)
“When God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by;
Let us...”
– George Herbert: The Pulley (1633) (via @SlateCultFest)
“The trouble is that liberals, in general, base their morality almost exclusively...”
– Why liberals need conservatives, and vice versa – Telegraph Blogs
“In our Nature, therefore, the Lord trembled with our fear, that He might fully...”
– Leo the Great, Palm Sunday Sermon.
CHURCH FATHERS: Sermon 54, [Sunday before Easter] (Leo the Great)
“If we would return to God, and find ourselves in Him, we must reverse Adam’s...”
– T. Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite
(from Your Daily Tripod: The Same Gift)
“Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics.”
– A Slow-Books Manifesto - Maura Kelly - Entertainment - The Atlantic
According to this study, PATCH ADAMS is a lie.
A connection between humor and health outcomes is widely assumed but has been understudied, particularly in clinical populations. The use of humor as a coping mechanism has been suggested as a potential predictor of quality of life (QOL) outcomes in chronic disease. This study assessed the relationship between humor and physical/mental health variables in a longitudinal study of individuals with...
“Art is the well making of what needs making.”
– Eric Gill (via triadic)
“Genesis 12: 1-5, 9
The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your...”
– Genesis 12 NIV - The Call of Abram
“Mike Daisey: Yeah. We have different worldviews on some of these things. I agree...”
– (via areasofmyexpertise)
“Gently the day has passed in a sustained
Low hum of harmony. The brain is...”
– Nabokov’s Pale Fire
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I...”
– Nabokov’s Pale Fire
A methodical man, John Shade usually copied out his daily quota of completed lines at midnight but even if he recopied them again later, as I suspect he sometimes did, he marked his card or cards not with the date of his final adjustments, but with that of his Corrected Draft or first Fair Copy…There is a very loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings…. I shall assert [with regard...
“Francesca Murphy gives a rigorous defence of analogy through the thought of...”
– Steve Wright - “The Bloom of Time”
“…nothing that Hirst does lacks an art-historical pedigree. He has recycled...”
– Great line from this old article on Damien Hirst in the New Yorker.
Damien Hirst and the Young British Artists : The New Yorker
J. R. R. Tolkien, in response to German inquiries about his ethnic descent, prior to the publication of THE HOBBIT in German:
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to...
“Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry...”
– Lists of Note, F. Scott Fitzgerald to His Daughter
“Our happiness is of a piece with our freedom, and cannot be separated from the...”
– Scruton contra Transhumanist Utopianism.
Roger Scruton - Gloom merchant | New Humanist
In high school Spanish, I once asked a girl what the meaning of life was. She said, “To discover the meaning of life,” as if she had been thinking about this all her life. I nodded and nodded like this was meaningful, even though it was nonsense. Did I mention the girl was cute?
“Descending Theology: The Resurrection
BY MARY KARR
From the far star points...”
– Descending Theology: The Resurrection by Mary Karr : Poetry Magazine
Source: Poetry (January 2006).
Mary Karr, "Descending Theology: Christ Human" →
wesleyhill:
Such a short voyage for a god, and you arrived in animal form so as not to scorch us with your glory. Your mask was an infant’s head on a limp stalk, sticky eyes smeared blind, limbs rendered useless in swaddle. You came among beasts as one, came into our care or its lack, came crying
