"Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear — and doubt."

-- in David Brooks, "Pitching with Purpose", The New York Times

"[W]hile an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger. The tolerant should curb the intolerant only in this case... The just should be guided by the principles of justice and not by the fact that the unjust cannot complain."

-- John Rawls, A Theory of Justice

"Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy."

-- Neil Gabler, "The Maverick and the Media", The New York Times

Angkor, Cambodia

"Psychology's insistence on the importance of unconscious processes for religious experience is extremely unpopular, no less with the political Right than with the Left. For the former the deciding factor is the historical revelation that came to man from outside; to the latter this is sheer nonsense, and man has no religious function at all, except belief in the party doctrine, when suddenly the most intense faith is called for."

-- Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self

"It's good when you can't explain a picture. Because that means it's visual."

-- Elliott Erwitt

"The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is... an inescapable characteristic of the human condition."

-- Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays

"But is altruism really best understood as an urge wired into us by selfish genes?

"It may be enlightening here to consider an analogy between altruism and prudence. Caring about others is a bit like caring about one’s future self. You altruistically give money to relieve the misery of others; you prudently put aside money now so that you will not be miserable in old age. What is the source of this concern each of us has for our future selves? From the evolutionary point of view, the answer is simple: our forerunners who lacked such a prudential instinct died out.

"But that is not the end of the story. Consider Mr. Improvident, who is just like us except that he is not wired to care about his future. (There’s one in every family.) Mr. Improvident gets no neural kick from saving for tomorrow. Yet we can see that he has an objective reason to do so. He is, after all, a person extended in time, not a series of disconnected selves.

"We ought to be able to see a similarly objective reason for altruism, one rooted, as the philosopher Thomas Nagel observed, in "the conception of oneself as merely a person among others equally real." My reason for taking steps to relieve the suffering of others is, in this way of thinking, as valid as my reason for taking steps to avert my own future suffering. Both reasons arise from our understanding of what sort of beings we are, not from the vagaries of natural selection."

-- Jim Holt, "Good Instincts", The New York Times Magazine

"We dream in narrative, day-dream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate and love by narrative."

-- Barbara Hardy, "Towards a Poetics of Fiction: An Approach Through Narrative", Novel, 2