Competition is merely the absence of oppression.
None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much.
Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.
What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it.
May God deny you peace but give you glory!
Scholasticism, a concept which does not bear criticism, is a theological concept specifically designed to sustain faith in the immortality of the soul.
What is vanity but the longing to survive?
If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family.
The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.
Making wishes on the elephant is emotionally dangerous, because inevitably one's hopes rise abnormally high, unhealthily high, and when the wish does not come true, one's high hopes get crushed more painfully than if one had not asked for the help of supernatural powers. Therefore, one should always try to make the wish casually and forget about it instantly after making it, which is what I try to do now.
The myth is the public domain and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got a long adventure in the dark forest ahead of you.