Top 2006 Quotes

Seeing the name in a headline last week—a headline about a life that had involved real achievement—I felt a mouse stirring in the attic of my memory. Eventually, I was able to recall how the two Hill...

No matter who you were in sixteenth-century Europe, you could be sure of two things: you would be lucky to reach fifty years of age, and you could expect a life of discomfort and pain. Old age tires t...

A so-called antimony war had been waged between French [Galenist] physicians and [alchemical, Paracelsian] iatrochemists since the beginning of the seventeenth century. What it lacked in bloodletting,...

That night I slept badly, thrashing about in my bed, not quite asleep and not quite awake. At times I had the feeling there was someone else in my bedroom who was talking to me, but of course I could...

The United States is like one big jail for Black people, because we're locked into a mentality and a mindset that limits our potential. It has us against us.

I don't like the way our community throws the word around like it's water, because it's a derogatory term. A lot of times people come up to me and say, "What's up my nigger?" I'll respond, "Nah, wait...

Given the religious nature of the Middle Eastern culture, how might a Middle Eastern democracy [be] structured? Will there be three or four branches of government? Should a religious branch be added t...

Before continuing further, it is important to gain an understanding of how democracy is perceived by the ordinary people of the Middle East. Democracy, as a secular entity, is unlikely t be favorably...

METAPHYSICAL LECTURE 1It has been said that after undergoing certain ordeals — whether ecstatic or abysmal — we should be obliged to change our names, as we are no longer who we once were. Instead the...

The name Mary Jo Quinn was written neatly in faded blue marker on the front of the scrapbook, its gray edges frayed with age and wear, as though it had been handled often. Such a memento was a strange...

It is only rather recently that science has begun to make peace with its magical roots. Until a few decades ago, it was common for histories of science either to commence decorously with Copernicus's...

Peasants brought up on a tradition of superstitious magic could hardly be expected to distinguish between such ostensibly Christian rituals and the mumbled incantations of the local wizard. And so, to...

Now what is the will of God? That's the big question. You can't say the will of God is to disrespect your fellow man. You can't say the will of God is to disrespect His creations, and you can't say th...