When it comes down to it, it really is the little things that count most.
I found powerful the idea that everything we have is, in effect, stolen from everybody else.
Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.
Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down.
It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea.
If I were to say, "Yes, I am a fascinating, erudite person," what would that say about me? I don't know.
If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!
There is no profit in deceit. An honest man knows revenge is not sweet.
I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.
I feel blessed to have an opportunity to try out for a second Olympics team and if it doesn't work out, hey I gave it my all.
Beginning with Santa Claus as a cognitive exercise, a child is encouraged to share the same idea of reality as his peers. Even if that reality is patently invented and ludicrous, belief is encouraged with gifts that support and promote the common cultural lies. The greatest consensus in modern society is our traffic systems. The way a flood of strangers can interact, sharing a path, almost all of them traveling without incident. It only takes one dissenting driver to create anarchy.