fear of death

"No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils" - Plato, Apology

Rich/Poor

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." - John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address Jan. 20, 1961

Profound Love/Profound Hurt

"A profound love between two people involves... the power and chance of doing profound hurt." -Ursala K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Refuge of Incompetence

"...one does have to learn to look at art. But it's up to the artist to use language that can be understood. Most of these jokers don't want to use language you and I can learn; they would rather sneer because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If anything. Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence."

- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

All the Good

"I can not do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good that I can do" - Jana Stanfield as quoted in Jane Roberts's 34 Million Friends of the Women of the World

Econ. Majors

"There are only two types of educations: 1. Useful 2. Useless. If you're foolish enough to get one of those useful educations, such as an engineering degree, everything you learn will be obselete in five years. The rest of what you learn for the remainder of your life will come from reading brochures from vendors. That's why I majored in economics. With economics you never have to worry that your degree will become less relevant over time. I mean, how the hell could it?"

- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Future

"Nixon DID turn out to be shifty and untrustworthy in the end."

"That first Nixon-Kennedy debate has long been cited as the founding moment of the triumph of image over substance - among all those TV viewers who thought Nixon's sweating and five-o'clock shadow made him look shifty and untrustworthy. But what if we've had it wrong about that debate? What if it wasn't Nixon's lack of makeup that troubled the TV watchers? After all, Nixon did turn out to be shifty and untrustworthy in the end. Perhaps all those voters who thought he had won hafter they heard the debate on the radio or read the transcript in the papers simply didn't have access to the range of emotional information conveyed by television. Nixon lost on TV because he didn't look like someone you would want as president, and where emotion IQ is concerned, looks don't always deceive."

Steven Johnson - Everything Bad is Good for You