Engaging Speech Quotes

How much time do I get in exchange for that rose?” For the rose, a short engagement. For the speech, you get a lifetime.” I can live with that,” he said, and kissed her.

Freedom of speech and thought matters, especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes, thought crime becomes a reality.

Discourse and critical thinking are essential tools when it comes to securing progress in a democratic society. But in the end, unity and engaged participation are what make it happen.

It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it . . . now that I can finally do it . . . I'm really raring to go. I was in my study writing. I was learning how to go down into myself and salvage bits and pieces of the past. I was learning how to sneak up on the unconscious and how to catch my seemingly random thoughts and fantasies. By closing me out of his world, Bennett had opened all sorts of worlds inside my own head. Gradually I began to realize that none of the subjects I wrote poems about engaged my deepest feelings, that there was a great chasm between what I cared about and what I wrote about. Why? What was I afraid of? Myself, most of all, it seemed. "Freedom is an illusion," Bennett would have said and, in a way, I too would have agreed. Sanity, moderation, hard work, stability . . . I believed in them too. But what was that other voice inside of me which kept urging me on toward zipless fucks, and speeding cars and endless wet kisses and guts full of danger? What was that other voice which kept calling me coward! and egging me on to burn my bridges, to swallow the poison in one gulp instead of drop by drop, to go down into the bottom of my fear and see if I could pull myself up? Was it a voice? Or was it a thump? Something even more primitive than speech. A kind of pounding in my gut which I had nicknamed my "hunger-thump." It was as if my stomach thought of itself as a heart. And no matter how I filled it—with men, with books, with food—it refused to be still. Unfillable—that's what I was. Nymphomania of the brain. Starvation of the heart.

Ares always reemerges from the chaos. It will never go away. Athenian civilization defends itself from the forces of Ares with metis, or technology. Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists' uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn't work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.

Prana... is the spirit of mantra. Mantra in turn is the expression of prana. Whatever most engages our prana or vital energy becomes the main subject of our speech.

In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.

Bitter experience has taught me that you don't engage with intellectually superior wankers who make long speeches about moral relativism.

Dharma practice means physical hardship; it means that you shouldn't be pansies about it. You should exert yourselves wholeheartedly to engage in the practice, so that it will affect your body, speech, and mind.

It is not my methodology to engage too much with critics for many reasons: - I honestly believe that my ego is not worthy of my having to defend it. There are far more important things in the ummah than me having to respond to critics. - By and large, criticism is a part of human life and nature and we have ourselves to accomplish more than just responding to what people say about us. - The best way to silence the speech of the critics it through the deafening noise of your own actions. - Criticising is the job that requires zero qualifications.

Don’t switch off. Stay engaged. Resist distraction. Concentrate. Focus. Be present. Smell the coffee. Taste the food. Listen to the speech. Keep that Latin accurate. Stop thinking about what’s coming next, stop checking the mobile, and relish what’s happening now. Seize the day. For all you know, it’s the only one you’ve got. Live in the moment.

Display politeness and frankness always both in action and conversation. Don’t keep engaging in useless arguments. It scares your dreams away. Talk sensibly.

Feminists believe that women should be protected from certain aspects of public life, including speech..... Feminists do not want to engage in aspects of life they disagree with. Instead, they want to silence what they don’t like through censorship and criminalisation. Feminists believe that women need protection from words. Finally, contemporary feminists do not believe that women are independent, free-thinking individuals. Feminists promote a cliquey, sisterhood mentality, but not through a collective and positive sharing of ideas. They’re the kind of group you’d encounter at school who would shun you if you weren’t wearing the right kind of hairband. Today’s feminism is opposed to criticism and nuance, refusing to allow women to form their own opinions or challenge preconceived ideas.

I’m a stage five clinger. If you poke me with that penis, I will want to marry you tomorrow. I actually already love you. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom, I was preparing my engagement speech to you, because I want to propose, and if we have sex, I guarantee you I will get pregnant, condom or not. My vagina eats condoms actually and my eggs are more than willing to pull your sperm into their sacs as hostages. We can make a baby today, just say the word. Marriage, babies, and I love you. I love you. I love you.

Some of the dairy people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening after their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to fragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed; noted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by the leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her contented pauses, the occassional laugh upon which her soul seemed to ride - the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women - unlike anything else in nature. They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not yet alighted.

The Council of American Builders met once a month and engaged in no tangible activity beyond listening to speeches and sipping an inferior brand of root beer. Its membership did not grow fast in quantity or quality. There were no concrete results achieved.

I once asked Bill McKibben, after an energising speech to a capacity crowd, when – given that the situation is as urgent as he portrayed it and we all know it is – we escalate. He was visibly ill at ease. The first part of his response presented what we might call the objection from asymmetry: as soon as a social movement engages in violent acts, it moves onto the terrain favoured by the enemy, who is overwhelmingly superior in military capabilities. The state loves a fight of arms; it knows it will win. Our strength is in numbers. This is a pet argument for strategic pacifists, but it is disingenuous. Violence is not the sole field where asymmetry prevails. The enemy has overwhelmingly superior capabilities in virtually all fields, including media propaganda, institutional coordination, logistical resources, political legitimacy and, above all, money. If the movement should shun uphill battles, a divestment campaign seems like the worst possible choice: trying to sap fossil capital by means of capital.

Watching him, his hands buried in his pockets—to keep from circling her neck she supposed—she couldn't help but marvel at the curious mix of Southern courtesy and male arrogance, the natural assumption he shouldered of being lawfully in control. "Engaging in a moral battle isn't always hazardous to one's health, you know." "Doesn't look like it's doing wonders for yours." "Saints be praised, it can actually be rewarding." Looking over his shoulder, he halted in the middle of the room. "Irish." "I beg your pardon?" "You. Irish. The green eyes, the tiny bit of red in your hair. Is Connor your real name?" "Yes, why..." she said, stammering. Bloody hell. "Of course." "Liar." She felt the slow, hot roll of color cross her cheeks. "What could that possibly have to do with anything?" "I don't know, but I have a feeling it means something. It's the first I've heard come out of that sassy mouth of yours that didn't sound like some damned speech." He tapped his head, starting to pace again. "What I wonder is, where are you in there?

Wilderness, or wildness is a mystique. A religion, an intense philosophy, a dream of ideal society - these are also mystique. We are not engaged in preserving so many acre-feet of water, so many board-feet of timber, so many billion tons of granite, so many profit possibilities in so many ways for those concerned with the material aspects of the world. Yet, we must accept the fact that human life (at least in the metabolic sense) depends upon the resources of the Earth. As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes and seas, and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence. From a speech to The Wilderness Society, May 9 1980

[I retained] only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence, never using when I advance any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words 'Certainly, 'undoubtedly', or any others that I give the Air of Positiveness to an Opinion; but rather say 'I conceive', or 'I apprehend a Thing to be so or so', 'It appears to me', or 'I should think it so or so for such & such Reasons', or 'I imagine' it to be so or so, or 'it is so' if I am not mistaken.—This Habit I believe has been of great Advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my Opinions and persuade Men into Measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting.—And as the chief Ends of Conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible Men would not lessen their Power of doing Good by a Positive assuming Manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create Opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which Speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving Information or Pleasure: For if you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction & prevent a candid Attention.

What did I want? What was I looking for? What was I doing there, hour after hour?Contradictory things. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to be stimulated. I wanted to be in contact and I wanted to retain my privacy, my private space. I wanted to click and click and click until my synapses exploded, until I was flooded by superfluity. I wanted to hypnotise myself with data, with coloured pixels, to become vacant, to overwhelm any creeping anxious sense of who I actually was, to annihilate my feelings. At the same time I wanted to wake up, to be politically and socially engaged. And then again I wanted to declare my presence, to list my interests and objections, to notify the world that I was still there, thinking with my fingers, even if I’d almost lost the art of speech. I wanted to look and I wanted to be seen, and somehow it was easier to do both via the mediating screen.

Julien decided that his expression and speech were those of a man engaged in digestion. At

Larry Kramer’s speech is Jewish in the devotion it displays to the messianic conviction that the truth liberates if its precepts are entirely engaged with, and lived.

And if it is true that the image still has the function of speaking, of transmitting something consubstantial with language, we must recognize that it already no longer says the same thing; and that by its own plastic values painting engages in an experiment that will take it farther and farther from language, whatever the superficial identity of the theme. Figure and speech still illustrate the same fable of folly in the same moral world, but already they take two different directions, indicating, in a still barely perceptible scission, what will be the great line of cleavage in the Western experience of madness. The

How to be both free and situated; how to convert a racist house into a race-specific yet nonracist home? How to enunciate race while depriving it of its lethal cling? They are questions of concept, of language, of trajectory, of habitation, of occupation, and, although my engagement with them has been fiece, fitful, and constantly (I think) evolving, they remain in my thoughts as aesthetically and pollitically unresolved.

Being lately engaged to plead a cause before the Court of the Hundred, the crowd was so great that I could not get to my place without crossing the tribunal where the judges sat. And I have this pleasing circumstance to add further, that a young nobleman, having had his tunic torn, an ordinary occurrence in a crowd, stood with his gown thrown over him, to hear me, and that during the seven hours I was speaking, whilst my success more than counterbalanced the fatigue of so long a speech. So let us set to and not screen our own indolence under pretence of that of the public. Never, be very sure of that, will there be wanting hearers and readers, so long as we can only supply them with speakers and writers worth their attention.

Most of us have physical or mental conditions that have caused us distress in the past. And when we get a whiff of one coming—an incipient asthma attack, a symptom of chronic fatigue, a twinge of anxiety—we panic. Instead of relaxing with the feeling and letting it do its minute and a half while we’re fully open and receptive to it, we say, “Oh no, oh no, here it is again.” We refuse to feel fundamental ambiguity when it comes in this form, so we do the thing that will be most detrimental to us: we rev up our thoughts about it. What if this happens? What if that happens? We stir up a lot of mental activity. Body, speech, and mind become engaged in running away from the feeling, which only keeps it going and going and going. We

MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.

Hans Walter Wolff has suggested that the Sabbath is the great equalizer, for that day is a foretaste of the kingdom when all-great and small-are reckoned to be exactly equal .2' All-masters and slaves-are to engage in this most godlike activity of being at peace.

It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.

Life noise has become an atmospheric accompaniment that we have grown inured to, resulting in the outcome that all too often we are poor listeners, to speech or music. There are constant reminders in the workplace as to just how often most people are not paying particular attention to what is being said. People frequently simply don’t listen. They have lost the art of concentrated hearing—so fundamental to real human connection. Music alone restores the capacity to concentrate and liberate your brain to really listen and enjoy the process of engaged hearing.

He cut out one quip from his September speech as just too flippant: he had been going to say, 'Our destroyers then engaged that particular submarine, and all that thereafter was seen of the vessel was a large spot of oil and a door which floated up to the surface bearing my initials.

Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists’ uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn’t work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.

You’re saying your mother engaged in unprotected sex outside her primary relationship?’ ‘With some other student,’ replied Rosie. ‘While she was dating my’ – at this point Rosie raised her hands and made a downwards movement, twice, with the index and middle fingers of both hands – ‘father. My real dad’s a doctor. I just don’t know which one. Really, really pisses me off.’ I was fascinated by the hand movements and silent for a while as I tried to work them out. Were they a sign of distress at not knowing who her father was? If so, it was not one I was familiar with. And why had she chosen to punctuate her speech at that point … of course! Punctuation! ‘Quotation marks,’ I said aloud as the idea hit me. ‘What?’ ‘You made quotation marks around “father” to draw attention to the fact that the word should not be interpreted in the usual way. Very clever.’ ‘Well, there you go,’ she said. ‘And there I was thinking you were reflecting on my minor problem with my whole fucking life. And might have something intelligent to say.’ I corrected her. ‘It’s not a minor problem at all!’ I pointed my finger in the air to indicate an exclamation mark. ‘You should insist on being informed.’ I stabbed the same finger to indicate a full stop. This was quite fun.

I hope that we can start to see what Jesus was about in a rather richer way. One of the things that Jesus was about was that he was creating faith. He was doing something so that we could believe. Effectively he was saying “I know that you are susceptible. I know that you find it very difficult to believe that God loves you. I know that you are inclined to be frightened of death. And because of that you are inclined to run from death, mete it out to others and engage in all sorts of forms of self-delusion and self-destruction. You find it difficult to imagine that things really will be well and that you are being held in being by someone who is utterly trustworthy. All this I know.” “What I want to do is to try to nudge you into being able to trust that the One who brought you and everything into being is actually trustable, not out to get you. You can believe him. Believe in him, believe in me. I am going to act out in such a way as to make it possible for you to believe — I am setting out to prove God’s trustworthiness for you.” In fact, in John’s Gospel the very phrase appears “Believe in God, believe also in me ... and now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.”1 John actually frames Jesus’ speech before the Passion as a discussion by which Jesus explains how he is inducing belief.

At first Christ was a man – nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David. Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death. The claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven. It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men. If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner? Is Christ our example? He never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. He was the enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. Dives was sent to hell, not because he was bad, but because he was rich. Lazarus went to heaven, not because he was good, but because he was poor. Christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music – nothing for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech. He said nothing about the sacredness of home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in honor of maternity. He never married. He wandered homeless from place to place with a few disciples. None of them seem to have been engaged in any useful business, and they seem to have lived on alms. All human ties were held in contempt; this world was sacrificed for the next; all human effort was discouraged. God would support and protect. At last, in the dusk of death, Christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried out: “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? We have found that man must depend on himself. He must clear the land; he must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent; he must work with hand and brain; he must overcome the difficulties and obstructions; he must conquer and enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may do the work of the world.

I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:           "Men should be taught as if you taught them not,           And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;" farther recommending to us "To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence.

My dear Sir. Yours of the 13th. is just received. My engagements are such that I can not, at any very early day, visit Rock-Island, to deliver a lecture, or for any other object. As to the other matter you kindly mention, I must, in candor, say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am flattered, and gratified, that some partial friends think of me in that connection; but I really think it best for our cause that no concerted effort, such as you suggest, should be made. Let this be considered confidential. Yours very truly, {Abraham Lincoln}

participation in the political process or lack thereof—and the principles we employ—greatly affect our neighbors. Politics can be a matter of freedom or imprisonment, free speech or censorship, housing or homelessness, life or death. Politics is an essential aspect of modern life. It is how we govern ourselves, and it plays a major role in how we organize ourselves as a society. Political actions have started wars and defined certain people as property, but they’ve also fed the hungry and provided care for the sick. Christians must be faithful and thoughtful in how we choose to wield our influence and political power.

Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

Chomsky was born and raised in Philadelphia, but his parents were among tens of thousands of Ashkenazic Jews who fled Russia following the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881.110 Jewish anarchists were singled out (falsely) as the assassins, setting off waves of the bloodiest pogroms in history. On top of that, thousands of Jews were forcibly removed from their homes in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and adjoining regions and led off, some in chains, to the so-called Pale of Settlement, a geographical ghetto along Russia’s western frontier. They risked severe punishment if they ventured beyond the Pale…pale, as in the pales of a fence. Even inside the Pale they were restricted from entering cities such as Kiev and Nikolaev, from owning or even leasing property, receiving a college education, or engaging in certain professions. By 1910, 90 percent of Russia’s Jews—5.6 million in all—were confined to the Pale.111 Anarchism had been a logical enough reaction. The word “anarchy” literally means “without rulers.” The Jewish refugees from Russian racial hatred translated that as not merely no more czars…but no more authorities of any sort…no public officials, no police, no army, no courts of law, no judges, no jailers, no banks—no money—no financial

Technocrats live their lives abstractly, even while they are managing their own sphere. For them, all problems are intellectual. You must think constantly, and that thinking makes action possible. Once you have thought, the doing simply follows. Reason leads to language, and the battleground of the technocrat is language. If the language is reshaped, so will be the action. Political correctness, as it’s called, is the manner in which the technocrats as the ascendant class reshaped the world. The tension of the technocracy is between their work in their own fields and the universal principles that they practice. This shows itself most clearly in the way they deal with the declining class, the heavily white, industrial working class. In the thinking of the technocracy, the fundamental cause of oppression is whites who have historically oppressed using race, nationality, and gender. But the technocrats draw a sharp distinction between themselves (predominantly white) who are at least engaged in a struggle to transcend oppression in thought and speech and those whites who continue to practice it. This declining class is plunging economically, but for the technocracy, which embraces a vast range of incomes, that decline is not of the essence. It is their unwillingness to abandon oppression.

In 2015, the writer Alex Blank Millard engaged in her own gender-swap experiment to highlight the misogynist nature of online abuse. Sick of constantly receiving rape threats from ‘faceless eggs’ online, she changed her Twitter profile photo to that of a white man – but kept the content she posted the same. When Millard tweeted about rape culture, fat shaming, and systemic oppression as Lady Alex, the standard response was a deluge of rape and death threats, and a bunch of guys calling her fat. When she commented on the same things as Straight- and Cis-Looking White Dude Alex, she was retweeted, favourited, and even cited by Buzzfeed (Millard, 2015).

Lena's talk always amused me. Antonia had never talked like the people about her. Even after she learned to speak English readily, there was always something impulsive and foreign in her speech. But Lena had picked up all the conventional expressions she heard at Mrs. Thomas's dressmaking shop. Those formal phrases, the very flower of small-town proprieties, and the flat commonplaces, nearly all hypocritical in their origin, became very funny, very engaging, when they were uttered in Lena's soft voice, with her caressing intonation and arch naivete. Nothing could be more diverting than to hear Lena, who was almost as candid as Nature, call a leg a 'limb' or a house a 'home.

Before embarking on this intellectual journey, I would like to highlight one crucial point. In much of this book I discuss the shortcomings of the liberal worldview and the democratic system. I do so not because I believe liberal democracy is uniquely problematic but rather because I think it is the most successful and most versatile political model humans have so far developed for dealing with the challenges of the modern world. While it might not be appropriate for every society in every stage of development, it has proven its worth in more societies and in more situations than any of its alternatives. So when we are examining the new challenges that lie ahead of us, it is necessary to understand the limitations of liberal democracy and to explore how we can adapt and improve its current institutions. Unfortunately, in the present political climate any critical thinking about liberalism and democracy might be hijacked by autocrats and various illiberal movements, whose sole interest is to discredit liberal democracy rather than to engage in an open discussion about the future of humanity. While they are more than happy to debate the problems of liberal democracy, they have almost no tolerance of any criticism directed at them. As an author, I was therefore required to make a difficult choice. Should I speak my mind openly and risk that my words might be taken out of context and used to justify burgeoning autocracies? Or should I censor myself? It is a mark of illiberal regimes that they make free speech more difficult even outside their borders. Due to the spread of such regimes, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to think critically about the future of our species. After some soul-searching, I chose free discussion over self-censorship. Without criticizing the liberal model, we cannot repair its faults or move beyond it. But please note that this book could have been written only when people are still relatively free to think what they like and to express themselves as they wish. If you value this book, you should also value the freedom of expression.

What the most advanced researchers and theoreticians in all of science now comprehend is that the Newtonian concept of a universe driven by mass force is out of touch with reality, for it fails to account for both observable phenomena and theoretical conundrums that can be explained only by quantum physics: A quantum view explains the success of small efforts quite differently. Acting locally allows us to be inside the movement and flow of the system, participating in all those complex events occurring simultaneously. We are more likely to be sensitive to the dynamics of this system, and thus more effective. However, changes in small places also affect the global system, not through incrementalism, but because every small system participates in an unbroken wholeness. Activities in one part of the whole create effects that appear in distant places. Because of these unseen connections, there is potential value in working anywhere in the system. We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In what Wheatley calls “this exquisitely connected world,” the real engine of change is never “critical mass”; dramatic and systemic change always begins with “critical connections.”14 So by now the crux of our preliminary needs should be apparent. We must open our hearts to new beacons of Hope. We must expand our minds to new modes of thought. We must equip our hands with new methods of organizing. And we must build on all of the humanity-stretching movements of the past half century: the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the civil rights movement; the Free Speech movement; the anti–Vietnam War movement; the Asian American, Native American, and Chicano movements; the women’s movement; the gay and lesbian movement; the disability rights/pride movement; and the ecological and environmental justice movements. We must find ourselves amid the fifty million people who as activists or as supporters have engaged in the many-sided struggles to create the new democratic and life-affirming values that are needed to civilize U.S. society.

They walked later on Sundays, when it was quite dark. Some of the dairy-people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening after their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to fragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed; noted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by the leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her contented pauses, the occasional little laugh upon which her soul seemed to ride--the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women--unlike anything else in nature. They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not quite alighted.

Preaching that confronts racism: • Speaks up and speaks out. • Sees American racism as an opportunity for Christians honestly to name our sin and to engage in acts of detoxification, renovation, and reparation. • Is convinced that the deepest, most revolutionary response to the evil of racism is Jesus Christ, the one who demonstrates God for us and enables us to be for God. • Reclaims the church as a place of truth-telling, truth-embodiment, and truth enactment. • Allows the preacher to confess personal complicity in and to model continuing repentance for racism. • Brings the good news that Jesus Christ loves sinners, only sinners. • Enjoys the transformative power of God’s grace. • Listens to and learns from the best sociological, psychological, economic, artistic, and political insights on race in America, especially those generated by African Americans. • Celebrates the work in us and in our culture of a relentlessly salvific, redemptive Savior. • Uses the peculiar speech of scripture in judging and defeating the idea of white supremacy. • Is careful in its usage of color-oriented language and metaphors that may disparage blackness (like “washed my sins white as snow,” or “in him there is no darkness at all”). • Narrates contemporary Christians into the drama of salvation in Jesus Christ and thereby rescues them from the sinful narratives of American white supremacy. • Is not silenced because talk about race makes white Christians uncomfortable. • Refuses despair because of an abiding faith that God is able and that God will get the people and the world that God wants.

When people give these kinds of speeches, they usually tell you all kinds of wise and heartfelt things. They have wisdom to impart. They have lessons to share. They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big. As a matter of fact, dream and don't stop dreaming until all of your dreams come true. I think that's crap. I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, engaged, powerful people, are busy doing. The dreamers. They stare at the sky and they make plans and they hope and they talk about it endlessly. And they start a lot of sentences with "I want to be ..." or "I wish." "I want to be a writer." "I wish I could travel around the world." And they dream of it. The buttoned-up ones meet for cocktails and they brag about their dreams, and the hippie ones have vision boards and they meditate about their dreams. Maybe you write in journals about your dreams or discuss it endlessly with your best friend or your girlfriend or your mother. And it feels really good. You're talking about it, and you're planning it. Kind of. You are blue-skying your life. And that is what everyone says you should be doing. Right? I mean, that's what Oprah and Bill Gates did to get successful, right? No. Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It's hard work that makes things happen. It's hard work that creates change.

According to a hadith, the tongue is the “interpreter of the heart.” Hypocrisy is wretched because the hypocrite says with his tongue what is not in his heart. He wrongs his tongue and oppresses his heart. But if the heart is sound, the condition of the tongue follows suit. We are commanded to be upright in our speech, which is a gauge of the heart’s state. According to a prophetic tradition, each morning, when the limbs and organs awaken in the spiritual world, they shudder and say to the tongue, “Fear God concerning us! For if you are upright, then we are upright; and if you deviate, we too deviate.” Engaging in the regular remembrance of God (dhikr) safeguards the tongue and replaces idle talk with words and phrases that raise one in honor. The tongue is essential in developing courtesy with God, which is the whole point of existence.

Nevertheless, Oppenheimer strongly believed it was essential that the Institute remain a home to both science and the humanities. In his speeches about the Institute, Oppenheimer continually emphasized that science needed the humanities to better understand its own character and consequences. Only a few of the senior resident mathematicians agreed with him, but their support was critical. Johnny von Neumann was almost as interested in ancient Roman history as he was in his own field. Others shared Oppenheimer’s interest in poetry. He hoped that he could make the Institute a haven for scientists, social scientists and humanists interested in a multidisciplinary understanding of the whole human condition. It was an irresistible opportunity, a chance to bring together the two worlds, science and the humanities, that had engaged him equally as a young man.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great.

Charisma in this world is often just looking good and speaking well. Others merely project onto you what they want to believe to be true. Most people have superficial attachments and shallow thoughts, so the glib man can persuade many. One does not have to be a supreme salesman. No need to be a wizard with words. People clamor for a confident speaker that sounds the part. That your actions can deliver on words cements their allegiance. But even if you don’t become a leader yourself, you may find a key supporting role as a great communicator. Even before you speak, work on being a better listener and observer of cues in others. All messages must be tailored to the audience. In a group, there may be one listener who, if engaged, can turn the whole room towards your speech. Speak calmly, clearly and keep eye contact. Your voice is the voice of a leader confident in his capabilities and beliefs. Changes in tone should have a reason.

Why Westerners are so obsessed with "saving" Africa, and why this obsession so often goes awry? Western countries should understand that Africa’s development chances and social possibilities remain heavily hindered due to its overall mediocre governance. Africa rising is still possible -- but first Africans need to understand that the power lies not just with the government, but the people. I do believe, that young Africans have the will to "CHANGE" Africa. They must engage their government in a positive manner on issues that matters -- I also realize that too many of the continent’s people are subject to the kinds of governments that favor ruling elites rather than ordinary villagers and townspeople. These kind of behavior trickles down growth. In Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is the problem. In South Africa the Apartheid did some damage. The country still wrestles with significant racial issues that sometimes leads to the murder of its citizens. In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya the world’s worst food crisis is being felt. In Libya the West sends a mixed messages that make the future for Libyans uncertain. In Nigeria oil is the biggest curse. In Liberia corruption had make it very hard for the country to even develop. Westerners should understand that their funding cannot fix the problems in Africa. African problems can be fixed by Africans. Charity gives but does not really transform. Transformation should come from the root, "African leadership." We have a PHD, Bachelors and even Master degree holders but still can't transform knowledge. Knowledge in any society should be the power of transformation. Africa does not need a savior and western funds, what Africa needs is a drive towards ownership of one's destiny. By creating a positive structural system that works for the majority. There should be needs in dealing with corruption, leadership and accountability.

Soldiers of the Eastern Front! In countless battles in the year 1941, you not only removed from the Finnish, German, Slovak, Hungarian, and Romanian borders the enemy who was ready to launch an attack, but you also drove him back over a thousand kilometers into his own land. In attempting to bring about a turn of events in the winter of 1941–1942 and to move against us once more, he must and will fail! Yes, on the contrary, in the year 1942, after all the preparations that have been made, we will engage this enemy of mankind anew and do battle with him for as long as it takes to break the destructive will of the Jewish-capitalist and Bolshevik world. Germany will not and cannot be dragged into a new war for its existence or nonexistence by the same criminals every twenty-five years! Europe cannot and will not tear itself to pieces forever, just so that a bunch of Anglo American and Jewish conspirators can find satisfaction for their business machinations in the dissatisfaction of the people. It is our hope that the blood that is spilled in this war will be the last in Europe for generations. May the Lord help us with this in the coming year! Address to the Wehrmacht: January 1, 1942

Dissent from liberal orthodoxy is cast as racism, misogyny, bigotry, phobia, and, as we’ve seen, even violence. If you criticize the lack of due process for male college students accused of rape, you are a “rape apologist.” End of conversation. After all, who wants to listen to a rape lover? People who are anti–abortion rights don’t care about the unborn; they are misogynists who want to control women. Those who oppose same-sex marriage don’t have rational, traditional views about marriage that deserve respect or debate; they are bigots and homophobes. When conservatives opposed the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate” it wasn’t due to a differing philosophy about the role of government. No, they were waging a “War on Women.” With no sense of irony or shame, the illiberal left will engage in racist, sexist, misogynist, and homophobic attacks of their own in an effort to delegitimize people who dissent from the “already decided” worldview. Non-white conservatives are called sellouts and race traitors. Conservative women are treated as dim-witted, self-loathing puppets of the patriarchy, or nefarious gender traitors. Men who express the wrong political or ideological view are demonized as hostile interlopers into the public debate. The illiberal left sees its bullying and squelching of free speech as a righteous act. This

Even after the funeral, the trips to Kensington Palace, and the consolation of friends, I still couldn’t accept Diana’s death. Then, Mr. Jeffrey Ling, the British consul general in New York, invited me to speak at the memorial service for Diana in Central Park the weekend after the funeral. I was grateful for the chance to speak about Diana in my own words and at my own pace. Pat and I rewrote my three-minute speech over and over. I practiced it several times the night before. On Sunday afternoon I visited backstage with Mr. Ling and Mayor Giuliani before the service began. The mayor was engaging and down to earth. Mr. Ling was gracious and reassuring, a true gentleman. We watched the North Meadow fill up with more than ten thousand people and were grateful to see such a big turnout on a hot, sunny day. As I sat on the stage, I grew more nervous by the minute. I delivered my heartfelt speech, trembling with emotion as I spoke about “the Diana we knew.” As I looked out at the crowded meadow, I pondered the incredible path I’d traveled, all because I’d needed a part-time nanny in London seventeen years ago. I’d enjoyed a remarkable friendship, attended the most famous ceremonies of my lifetime, dined and danced in palaces, visited with royalty--extraordinary experiences for me and my family. Now, tragically, it was all ending here, as I spoke from my heart in memory and praise of my friend Diana.

If you are an evangelical reading this book, then I would ask you to look around and see what your witness has wrought. The nation is polarized. The candidates you back want to take us back to a mythical time—apparently the 1950s—that honestly did not exist. The bile and hatred of some of the leaders you emulate make it impossible for people to believe whatever witness you have left. While you are clinging to God and guns, mothers are clinging to pictures of children who have been shot dead in classrooms, in streets, in malls, in cars. More people go hungry today than ever before. Inequality is mounting. Calls for law and order mean more Black and Brown bodies dead at the hands of the police. The nation’s infrastructure is failing. Disdain for science has left America behind during a pandemic, while the rest of the world moves forward. The president you followed slavishly declared “American carnage” in his inaugural speech. Look around. You helped make this carnage we now experience. All of these things have occurred because evangelicals, through religious lobbying and interference, supported the political structures that curtailed, limited, or struck down truly important issues. The polarization we are experiencing in government has stymied progress. That polarization has taken on a resemblance to ideological and theological battles. Your nationalistic evangelicalism is hurting others. Your racism is actively engaged in killing bodies and souls. My analysis and prognostications may be dire, but it is never too late to make amends.

Postscript, 2005 From the Publisher ON APRIL 7, 2004, the Mid-Hudson Highland Post carried an article about an appearance that John Gatto made at Highland High School. Headlined “Rendered Speechless,” the report was subtitled “Advocate for education reform brings controversy to Highland.” The article relates the events of March 25 evening of that year when the second half of John Gatto’s presentation was canceled by the School Superintendent, “following complaints from the Highland Teachers Association that the presentation was too controversial.” On the surface, the cancellation was in response to a video presentation that showed some violence. But retired student counselor Paul Jankiewicz begged to differ, pointing out that none of the dozens of students he talked to afterwards were inspired to violence. In his opinion, few people opposing Gatto had seen the video presentation. Rather, “They were taking the lead from the teacher’s union who were upset at the whole tone of the presentation.” He continued, “Mr. Gatto basically told them that they were not serving kids well and that students needed to be told the truth, be given real-life learning experiences, and be responsible for their own education. [Gatto] questioned the validity and relevance of standardized tests, the prison atmosphere of school, and the lack of relevant experience given students.” He added that Gatto also had an important message for parents: “That you have to take control of your children’s education.” Highland High School senior Chris Hart commended the school board for bringing Gatto to speak, and wished that more students had heard his message. Senior Katie Hanley liked the lecture for its “new perspective,” adding that ”it was important because it started a new exchange and got students to think for themselves.” High School junior Qing Guo found Gatto “inspiring.” Highland teacher Aliza Driller-Colangelo was also inspired by Gatto, and commended the “risk-takers,” saying that, following the talk, her class had an exciting exchange about ideas. Concluded Jankiewicz, the students “were eager to discuss the issues raised. Unfortunately, our school did not allow that dialogue to happen, except for a few teachers who had the courage to engage the students.” What was not reported in the newspaper is the fact that the school authorities called the police to intervene and ‘restore the peace’ which, ironically enough, was never in the slightest jeopardy as the student audience was well-behaved and attentive throughout. A scheduled evening meeting at the school between Gatto and the Parents Association was peremptorily forbidden by school district authorities in a final assault on the principles of free speech and free assembly… There could be no better way of demonstrating the lasting importance of John Taylor Gatto’s work, and of this small book, than this sorry tale. It is a measure of the power of Gatto’s ideas, their urgency, and their continuing relevance that school authorities are still trying to shut them out 12 years after their initial publication, afraid even to debate them. — May the crusade continue! Chris Plant Gabriola Island, B.C. February, 2005

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:           "Men should be taught as if you taught them not,           And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;" farther recommending to us "To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence." And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly, "For want of modesty is want of sense." If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines,           "Immodest words admit of no defense,           For want of modesty is want of sense." Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his want of modesty? and would not the lines stand more justly thus?           "Immodest words admit but this defense,           That want of modesty is want of sense." This, however, I should submit to better judgments.

Doctrinal formulae are neither a set of neat definitions nor some sort of affront to the free-thinking soul; they are words that tell us enough truth to bring us to the edge of speech, and words that sustain enough common life to hold us there together in worship and mutual love... I learned to rethink Hegel and to grasp that what he was concerned with was not a system that could be projected on to some detached reality 'out there', but a habit of thinking that always sought to understand itself as a process of self-questioning and self-dissolution in the process of discovering *real* language - and thus real thinking. It is the energy of surpassing the settled individual self in the journey to truth... The Hegelian point (as I understand it) is that meaning does not come in the gaps between words or things, but in the way in which the structure and the surface of the world and speech can be so read and heard as to lead us into new and strange configurations of understanding - how words and things always deliver more than themselves, more than a series of objects and labels, and so both undermine and re-establish appearances. Hans Urs von Balthasar... developed an aesthetic of extraordinary depth in which some of the same themes may be discerned. His 'dramatic' construal of the world is meant to remind us that we do not start from intuitions of spiritual truth and then embody them in some way in practices and words. First we are addressed and engaged by what is utterly outside our capacity; we are forced towards new horizons. For Balthasar, this is how we establish on the firmest basis the recognition of the gap between what we can achieve or understand and what God makes known to us... God is free from obligation to our good deeds, free from confinement in our categories; God defines who he is by what he says and does, in revelation.

What about you? I know you’re not married. Are you seeing anyone or anything?” An image of Brooke sleeping in his bed popped into Cade’s head. Then a second image came to mind, of her giving him the “text me” speech at his front door. “Nothing serious.” “Really? ’Cuz you paused there.” If one more person commented on these damn alleged pauses . . . “Just eat your lunch,” Cade said. With a grin, Zach threw Cade’s words back at him. “If you’re having trouble talking to some girl, maybe you need to find another way to tell her how you feel.” “I know how to talk to her just fine.” “Maybe you’re not saying the right things, then.” “Can we change the subject?” Cade ran his hand through his hair. “You’re sixteen years old. Trust me, relationships get a lot more complicated when you’re an adult.” “Is this a friends-with-benefits situation?” “Aren’t you a little young to know about friends-with-benefits situations?” “I didn’t say I was partaking in them myself,” Zach said. “But shockingly, yes, I have heard of scenarios in which adults engage in intercourse without riding off into the sunset together.” Cade tried to decide how best to sum up the situation with Brooke. “There is a woman. We are friendly. There have been benefits.” “Do you like her?” Cade gestured with his burger. “Of course I like her. She’s, like, the smartest, wittiest, woman I’ve ever met. And hot, too.” “Yeah, I can see why you’d be confused about that,” Zach said. “Smart, witty, and hot. Sounds like a real complicated situation to me.” Okay, fine. To youthful, unjaded ears, it probably did sound odd. Cade tried a different way to explain. “She and I are on the same page. We’re just keeping it casual.” “Hey, you’re an intelligent guy, you obviously know what you’re doing,” Zach said. “But casual or not, if this girl’s that great you probably need to follow your own advice.” “What advice is that?” “Up your game.” That said, Zach took a big bite of his cheeseburger. Cade thought about that. Up his game? Pfft. If he had been thinking he might want to try to change Brooke’s mind about their just-having-fun situation—which obviously he did not, since no man of sound mind and body ever messed with a just-having-fun situation—maybe then he’d worry about upping his game. He scoffed. “You’re a teenager. What do you know?” “I’m wise beyond my years,” Zach said, his mouth full of burger

I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously: "Men should be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;" farther recommending to us "To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence." And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly, "For want of modesty is want of sense." If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines, "Immodest words admit of no defense, For want of modesty is want of sense." Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his want of modesty? and would not the lines stand more justly thus? "Immodest words admit but this defense, That want of modesty is want of sense." This, however, I should submit to better judgments.

Some years ago I saw a documentary on dying whose main theme was that people die as they lived. That was Jimmy. For five years, since he began undergoing operations for bladder cancer and even after his lung cancer was diagnosed, he continued the activities that he considered important, marching against crackhouses, campaigning against the demolition of the Ford Auditorium, organizing Detroit Summer, making speeches, and writing letters to the editor and articles for the SOSAD newsletter and Northwest Detroiter. In 1992 while he was undergoing the chemotherapy that cleared up his bladder cancer, he helped form the Coalition against Privatization and to Save Our City. The coalition was initiated by activist members of a few AFSCME locals who contacted Carl Edwards and Alice Jennings who in turn contacted us. Jimmy helped write the mission statement that gave the union activists a sense of themselves as not only city workers but citizens of the city and its communities. The coalition’s town meetings and demonstrations were instrumental in persuading the new mayor, Dennis Archer, to come out against privatization, using language from the coalition newsletter to explain his position. At the same time Jimmy was putting out the garbage, keeping our corner at Field and Goethe free of litter and rubbish, mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors, picking cranberries, and keeping up “his” path on Sutton. After he entered the hospice program, which usually means death within six months, and up to a few weeks before his death, Jimmy slowed down a bit, but he was still writing and speaking and organizing. He used to say that he wasn’t going to die until he got ready, and because he was so cheerful and so engaged it was easy to believe him. A few weeks after he went on oxygen we did three movement-building workshops at the SOSAD office for a group of Roger Barfield’s friends who were trying to form a community-action group following a protest demonstration at a neighborhood sandwich shop over the murder of one of their friends. With oxygen tubes in his nostrils and a portable oxygen tank by his side, Jimmy spoke for almost an hour on one of his favorite subjects, the need to “think dialectically, rather than biologically.” Recognizing that this was probably one of Jimmy’s last extended speeches, I had the session videotaped by Ron Scott. At the end of this workshop we asked participants to come to the next session prepared to grapple with three questions: What can we do to make our neighborhoods safe? How can we motivate people to transform? How can we create jobs?

See? I long to be your spiritual guide. I really do, and I will. Love is my motive, rather than any elevated belief in my own knowledge, contemplative work, experience, or maturity. And may God correct what I get wrong. For he knows everything, and I only know in part.1 Now to satisfy your proud intellect, I will praise the work of contemplation. You should know that if those engaged in this work had the linguistic talent to express exactly what they’re experiencing, then every scholar of Christianity would be amazed by their wisdom. It’s true! In comparison, all theological erudition would look like total nonsense. No wonder, then, that my clumsy human speech can’t describe the immense value of this work to you, and God forbid that the limitations of our finite language should desecrate and distort it. No, this must not and will not happen. God forbid that I would ever want that! For our analysis of contemplation and the exercise itself are two entirely different things. What we say of it is not it, but merely a description. So, since we can’t define it, let’s describe it. This will baffle all intellectual conceit, especially yours, which is the sole reason I’m writing this letter. I want to start off by asking you a question. What is the essence of human spiritual perfection, and what are its qualities? I’ll answer this for you. On earth, spiritual perfection is only possible through the union between God and the human soul in consummate love. This perfection is pure and so sublime that it surpasses our human understanding, and that’s why it can’t be directly grasped or observed. But wherever we see its consequences, we know that the essence of contemplation abounds there. So, if I tell you that this spiritual discipline is better than all others, then I must first prove it by describing what mature love looks like. This spiritual exercise grows virtues. Look within yourself as you contemplate and also examine the nature of every virtue. You’ll find that all virtues are found in and nurtured by contemplation with no distortion or degeneration of their purposes. I’m not going to single out any particular virtue here for discussion. I don’t need to because you can find them described in other things I’ve written.2 I’ll only comment here that contemplative prayer, when done right, is the respectful love and ripe fruit that I discuss in your little Letter on Prayer. It’s the cloud of unknowing, the hidden love-longing offered by a pure spirit. It’s the Ark of the Covenant.3 It’s the mystical theology of Dionysius, the wisdom and treasure of his “bright darkness” and “unknown knowing.” It takes you into silence, far from thoughts and words. It makes your prayer very short. In it, you learn how to reject and forget the world.

Missy and I became best friends, and soon after our first year together I decided to propose to her. It was a bit of a silly proposal. It was shortly before Christmas Day 1988, and I bought her a potted plant for her present. I know, I know, but let me finish. The plan was to put her engagement ring in the dirt (which I did) and make her dig to find it (which I forced her to do). I was then going to give a speech saying, “Sometimes in life you have to get your hands dirty and work hard to achieve something that grows to be wonderful.” I got the idea from Matthew 13, where Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower. I don’t know if it was the digging through the dirt to find the ring or my speech, but she looked dazed and confused. So I sort of popped the question: “You’re going to marry me, aren’t you?” She eventually said yes (whew!), and I thought everything was great. A few days later, she asked me if I’d asked her dad for his blessing. I was not familiar with this custom or tradition, which led to a pretty heated argument about people who are raised in a barn or down on a riverbank. She finally convinced me that it was a formality that was a prerequisite for our marriage, so I decided to go along with it. I arrived one night at her dad’s house and asked if I could talk with him. I told him about the potted plant and the proposal to his daughter, and he pretty much had the same bewildered look on his face that she’d had. He answered quite politely by saying no. “I think you should wait a bit, like maybe a couple of years,” he said. I wasn’t prepared for that response. I didn’t handle it well. I don’t remember all the details of what was said next because I was uncomfortable and angry. I do remember saying, “Well, you are a preacher so I am going to give you some scripture.” I quoted 1 Corinthians 7:9, which says: “It is better to marry than to burn with passion.” That didn’t go over very well. I informed him that I’d treated his daughter with respect and he still wouldn’t budge. I then told him we were going to get married with him or without him, and I left in a huff. Over the next few days, I did a lot of soul-searching and Missy did a lot of crying. I finally decided that it was time for me to become a man. Genesis 2:24 says: “For this reason [creation of a woman] a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” God is the architect of marriage, and I’d decided that my family would have God as its foundation. It was time for me to leave and cleave, as they say. My dad told me once that my mom would cuddle us when we were in his nest, but there would be a day when it would be his job to kick me out. He didn’t have to kick me out, nor did he have to ask me, “Who’s a man?” Through prayer and patience, Missy’s parents eventually came around, and we were more than ready to make our own nest.

You break her heart, and you’ll have to deal with me and her three brothers, and if you survive that, Her Grace will ensure your social ruin unto the nineteenth generation. I remind you, all of my boys are crack shots and more than competent with a sword.” “It is not my intention to break her heart.” “Oh, it’s never our intention.” His Grace’s brows drew down in thought, and he was once again the affable paterfamilias. “Maggie is different. I hope that’s from being the oldest daughter, but her unfortunate origins are too obvious a factor to be dismissed. She’s in want of… dreams, I think. My other girls have dreams. Sophie dreamed of her own family, Jenny loves to paint, Louisa has her literary scribbling, and Evie must racket about the property as her brothers used to, but Maggie has never been a dreamer. Not about her first pony nor her first waltz nor her first… beau.” Nor her first lover. The words hung unspoken in the air while the fire crackled and hissed and a log fell amid a shower of sparks. It wasn’t what Ben would have expected any papa to say of his daughter, but then, marrying into a family meant details like this would be shared—Esther Windham misplaced her everyday jewels, and Percy thought his daughters should be entitled to dream. In a different way, it felt as if Ben were still lurking in doorways and climbing through windows, but this window was called marriage, and Maggie was trying to lock it shut with Ben on the outside. “I’m not sure Maggie wants to marry me.” It was as close as he’d come to touching on the circumstances of the betrothal. His Grace regarded him for a long moment. “I’m her papa, but I was a young man once, Hazelton. Maggie is only a bit younger than Devlin and a few months older than Bart would have been. When I married, I had no idea either of my two oldest progeny existed. I’d no sooner started filling my nursery when—before my heir was out of dresses—both women came forward, hurling accusations and threats. If my marriage can survive that onslaught, surely you can overcome a little stubbornness in my daughter?” It was, again, an insight into the Windham family Ben gained only because he was engaged to marry Maggie. Such confidences prompted a rare inclination toward direct speech. “I think Maggie’s dream is to be left alone. If she jilts me, she’ll have one more excuse to retire from life, to hide and tell herself she’s content.” “Content.” His Grace spat the word. “Bother content. Content is milk toast and pap when life is supposed to be a banquet. Make Maggie’s dreams come true, young Hazelton, and show her contentment is shoddy goods compared to happiness.” “You make it sound simple.” “We’re speaking of women and that particular subspecies of the genre referred to as wives. It is simple—devote yourself to her happiness, and you will be rewarded tenfold. I do not, however, say the undertaking will ever be easy.

maybe you can tell me what the history books got wrong." I nodded, speech centers of my brain overridden by the same parts that had flown into high gear in the bakery in Athens when Demostrate announced the end of her engagement. We boarded. Titan fell away beneath us, a fuzzy yellow tennis ball above an endless black

Though the redemption purchased by Christ, as described in this epistle, is so complete and so free, yet between the beginning and the consummation of the work there is a protracted conflict. This is not a figure of speech. It is something real and arduous. Salvation, however gratuitous, is not to be obtained without great effort. The Christian conflict is not only real, it is difficult and dangerous. It is one in which true believers are often grievously wounded; and multitudes of reputed believers entirely succumb. It is one also in which great mistakes are often committed and serious loss incurred from ignorance of its nature, and of the appropriate means for carrying it on. Men are apt to regard it as a mere moral conflict between reason and conscience on the one side, and evil passions on the other. They therefore rely on their own strength, and upon the resources of nature for success. Against these mistakes the apostle warns his readers. He teaches that every thing pertaining to it is supernatural. The source of strength is not in nature. The conflict is not between the good and bad principles of our nature. He shows that we belong to a spiritual, as well as to a natural world, and are engaged in a combat in which the higher powers of the universe are involved; and that this conflict, on the issue of which our salvation depends, is not to be carried on with straws picked up by the wayside. As we have superhuman enemies to contend with, we need not only superhuman strength, but divine armour and arms. The weapons

The president and his subordinates have willfully undermined and prejudiced the rights of the American people to equal protection under the law and to engage in free political speech and association. He and his subordinates have employed the awesome powers of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the interest of partisan politics, selectively harassing conservative groups opposed to the president’s policies and denying them the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The term used by linguists to describe what Klotz was engaging in in that moment is “mitigated speech,” which refers to any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we’re being polite, or when we’re ashamed or embarrassed, or when we’re being deferential to authority. If you want your boss to do you a favor, you don’t say, “I’ll need this by

Founded in 2011, ToyTalk already produces popular animated conversational apps — among them the Winston Show and SpeakaZoo — that encourage young children to engage in complex dialogue with a menagerie of make-believe characters. Now the company’s technology, originally designed for two-dimensional characters on-screen, is poised to power tangible playthings that children hold in their hands. This fall, Mattel plans to introduce Hello Barbie, a Wi-Fi enabled version of the iconic doll, which uses ToyTalk’s system to analyze a child’s speech and produce relevant responses. “She’s a huge character with an enormous back story,” Mr. Jacob says of Barbie. “We hope that when she’s ready, she will have thousands and thousands of things to say and you can speak to her for hours and hours.” [Video: Hello Barbie is World's First Interactive Barbie Doll Watch on YouTube.] It was probably inevitable that the so-called Internet of Things — those Web-connected thermostats and bathroom scales and coffee makers and whatnot — would beget the Internet of Toys. And just like Web-connected consumer gizmos that can amass details about their owners and transmit that data for remote analysis, Internet-connected toys hold out the tantalizing promise of personalized services and the risk of privacy perils.

the Apology and the Crito represent a tension—in fact a conflict—between two more or less permanent and irreconcilable moral codes. The one represented by Socrates regards reason—the sovereign reason of the individual—as the highest authority. It is precisely the philosopher’s reliance on his or her own reason that frees him or her from the dangerous authority of the state and safeguards the individual from complicity in the injustice and evil that are a necessary part of political life. The other moral code is represented by the speech of the Laws in the Crito, where it is the law or nomos of the community—its oldest and deepest customs and institutions—that are obligatory. The one point of view takes the philosophic life, the examined life, to be the life most worth living; the other takes the political life, the life of the citizen engaged in the business of deliberating, legislating, making war and peace as the highest calling. These two constitute fundamentally irreconcilable alternatives, two different callings, and any attempt to reconcile or synthesize the two can only lead to doing an injustice to each.

Let us assume that the reader shared my opinion, that the market over the next week had a 70% probability of going up and 30% probability of going down. However, let us say that it would go up by 1% on average, while it could go down by an average of 10%. What would the reader do? Is the reader bullish or bearish? Table 6.2 Event                             Probability                             Outcome                             Expectation Market goes up                             70%                             Up 1%                             0.7 Market goes down                             30%                             Down 10%                             -3.00                                                                                                                                             Total                             -2.3 Accordingly, bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration. How frequent the profit is irrelevant; it is the magnitude of the outcome that counts. It is a pure accounting fact that, aside from the commentators, very few people take home a check linked to how often they are right or wrong. What they get is a profit or loss. As to the commentators, their success is linked to how often they are right or wrong. This category includes the “chief strategists” of major investment banks the public can see on TV, who are nothing better than entertainers. They are famous, seem reasoned in their speech, plow you with numbers, but, functionally, they are there to entertain—for their predictions to have any validity they would need a statistical testing framework. Their frame is not the result of some elaborate test but rather the result of their presentation skills.

Steven Burrows, head of the Intellectual Property Department, was there too. He'd earned the nickname "Seven" because of an acceptance speech he gave during an awards dinner for The Top 40 Lawyers Under 40, announcing that his greatest accomplishment did not relate to his practice, but instead was when he engaged in all seven deadly sins in one day.

This was how the slow process of ending a fight always began for them, with a sullen agreement to tolerate each other’s presence while engaged in a nonverbal activity, during which, at some point, one of them would make a not-quite-spontaneous comment about something unrelated to the argument, something safe, delivered in an offhand monotone, that didn’t require a response but usually got one, also to be delivered in the same flatline tone. From there, the exchanges, always off the subject of the fight, would gradually begin to pick up speed until they were actually talking and that monotone was replaced by the natural oscilloscope of unself-conscious human speech. Formal apologies, if the situation really demanded it, usually came later in another room or, if they could get away with it, never, neither of them wanting to risk another potentially volatile encounter if it wasn’t necessary.

The speeches she is making with almost weekly regularity are a further satisfying feature of her royal life. Some she writes herself, others by a small coterie of advisers, including her private secretary Patrick Jephson, now a firm ally in the royal camp as she personally appointed him last November. It is a flexible informal group who discuss with the Princess the points she wants to make, research the statistics and then construct the speech. The contrast between her real interests and the role assigned for her by her palace “minders” was amply demonstrated in March this year where on the same day she was guest of honour at the Ideal Home Exhibition and in the evening made a passionate and revelatory speech about AIDS. There was an interesting symbolism to these engagements, separated only by a matter of hours but by a generation in personal philosophy. Her exhibition visit was organized by the palace bureaucracy. They arranged everything from photo opportunities to guests lists while the subsequent media coverage concentrated on an off-the-cuff remark the Princess made about how she couldn’t comment on her plans for National Bed Week because this was “a family show”. It was light, bright and trite, the usual offering which is served up by the palace to the media day in day out. The Princess performed her role impeccably, chatting to the various organizers and smiling for the cameras. However her performance was just that, a role which the palace, the media and public have come to expect. A glimpse of the real Diana was on show later that evening when in the company of Professor Michael Adler and Margaret Jay, both AIDS experts, she spoke to an audience of media executives at a dinner held at Claridges. Her speech clearly came from the heart and her own experience. Afterwards she answered several rather long-winded questions from the floor, the first occasion in her royal life where she had subjected herself to this particular ordeal. This episode passed without a murmur in the media even though it represented a significant milestone in her life. It illustrates the considerable difficulties she faces in shifting perceptions of her job as a Princess, both inside and outside the palace walls.

Before all this started, I was happier than I had been in years. I was engaged to the woman of my dreams, fulfilled in my career and friendships. I smiled at people on the Tube, and woke up excited at life. By the time of the final court hearing, I was on anti-schizophrenic medication, with a shot immune system and an adrenal system on its knees. My Twitter and Facebook feeds were being monitored round the clock and anything the opposing lawyers felt was inappropriate (a generic tweet about free speech after the Charlie Hebdo atrocity, for example) led to instant threatening letters demanding their deletion.

Though they understood public debt was sometimes a necessity, they lived in fear of the young republic living too far beyond its means. “There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation,” James Madison said in a 1790 speech, “than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises.”8 As George Washington warned lawmakers in 1793, “No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.

The Scripture warns about evil communications that corrupt good manners. Off-color jokes and dirty stories have no place in the Christian life. Thousands of people are engaging in immorality by the way they talk. Keep your talk pure. Ask God to purify your tongue.

Expressive association In the United States, expressive associations are groups that engage in activities protected by the First Amendment – speech, assembly, press, petitioning government for a redress of grievances, and the free exercise of religion. In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, the U.S. Supreme Court held that associations may not exclude people for reasons unrelated to the group's expression. However, in the subsequent decisions of Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, the Court ruled that a group may exclude people from membership if their presence would affect the group's ability to advocate a particular point of view. The government cannot, through the use of anti-discrimination laws, force groups to include a message that they do not wish to convey. However, this concept does not now apply in the University setting due to the Supreme Court's ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), which upheld Hastings College of Law policy that the school's conditions on recognizing student groups were viewpoint neutral and reasonable. The policy requires student organizations to allow "any student to participate, become a member, or seek leadership positions, regardless of their status or beliefs" and so, can be used to deny the group recognition as an official student organization because it had required its members to attest in writing that "I believe in: The Bible as the inspired word of God; The Deity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, God's son; The vicarious death of Jesus Christ for our sins; His bodily resurrection and His personal return; The presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration; [and] Jesus Christ, God's son, is Lord of my life." The Court reasoned that because this constitutional inquiry occurs in the education context the same considerations that have led the Court to apply a less restrictive level of scrutiny to speech in limited public forums applies. Thus, the college's all-comers policy is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the student organization forum.

Your verbal hook is a sentence at the beginning of your speech meant to engage the audience.

But he began to lampoon the rise of Hitler, and soon his life was entangled in global politics. He was playing an engagement in Stockholm when the Nazis invaded Denmark in April 1940, and, believing himself to be on Hitler’s “extermination list,” he escaped to New York with his wife. He arrived in the United States with no personal belongings and ignorant of American customs and speech.

Our bodies have been created not only by God but also for God..We are driven today by whatever can bring our bodies the most pleasure. What can we eat, touch, watch, do listen to, or engage in to satisfy the cravings of our bodies?..in his love, gives us boundaries for our bodies: he loves us and knows what is best for us..[there are] clear and critical distinctions between different types of laws in Leviticus. Some of the laws are civil in nature, and they specifically pertain to the government of ancient Israel..Other laws are ceremonial..However, various moral laws..are explicitly reiterated in the New Testament..Jesus himself teaches that the only God-honoring alternative to marriage between a man and a woman is singleness..the Bible also prohibits all sexual looking and thinking outside of marriage between a husband and a wife..it is sinful even to look at someone who is not your husband or wife and entertain sexual thoughts about that person..it is also wrong to provoke sexual desires in others outside of marriage..God prohibits any kind of crude speech, humor, or entertainment that remotely revolves around sexual immorality..often watch movies and shows, read books and articles, and visit Internet sites that highlight, display, promote, or make light of sexual immorality..God prohibits sexual worship-- the idolization of sex and infatuation with sexual activity as a fundamental means to personal fulfillment..Don't rationalize it, and don't reason with it-- run from it. Flee it as fast as you can..We all have a sinful tendency to turn aside from God's ways to our wants. This tendency has an inevitable effect on our sexuality..every one of us is born with a bent toward sexual sin. But just because we have that bent doesn't mean we must act upon it. We live in a culture that assumes a natural explanation implies a moral obligation. If you were born with a desire, then it's essential to your nature to carry it out. This is one reason why our contemporary discussion of sexuality is wrongly framed as an issue of civil rights..Ethnic identity is a morally neutral attribute..Sexual activity is a morally chosen behavior..our sexual behavior is a moral decision, and just because we are inclined to certain behaviors does not make such behaviors right. His disposition toward a behavior does not mean justification for that behavior. "That's the way he is" doesn't mean "that's how he should act." Adultery isn't inevitable; it's immoral. This applies to all sexual behavior that deviates from God's design..We do not always choose our temptations. But we do choose our reactions to those temptations..the assumption that God's Word is subject to human judgement..Instead of obeying what God has said, we question whether God has said it..as soon as we advocate homosexual activity, we undercut biblical authority..we are undermining the integrity of the entire gospel..We take this created gift called sex and use it to question the Creator God, who gave us the gift in the first place..[Jesus] was the most fully human, fully complete person who ever lived, and he was never married. He never indulged in any sort of sexual immorality..This was not a resurrection merely of Jesus' spirit or soul but of his body..Repentance like this doesn't mean total perfection, but it does mean a new direction..in a culture that virtually equates identity with sexuality..Naturally this becomes our perception of ourselves, and we subsequently view everything in our lives through this grid..When you turn to Christ, your entire identity is changed. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. Your identity is no longer as a heterosexual or a homosexual, an addict or an adulterer.

The best way to thank your audience for the opportunity to speak to them is to deliver a speech that keeps them engaged, interested and involved.

...there is something the press can do in language that a society cannot do. You've done it before. Move us closer to participatory democracy; help us distinguish between a pseudo-experience and a living one, between an encounter and an engagement, between theme and life. Help us all try to figure out what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.

Without the input of a party's leaders, primary voters could be seduced by inexperienced celebrities and demagogues, Polsby warned in the eighties, and not because the voters are incompetent but because they get sucked into the sport of politics. If voters are making decisions based on who's best at making speeches, who has the best zingers, who makes the most outrageous promises he or she can't keep, we might not be making good decisions. That's why Polsby and other experts thought we should not choose candidates through a nomination system that looks like a reality show, with state-by-state battles in which losing candidates drop out one at a time; with TV networks keeping voters engaged by hosting a dozen debates; with postdebate spin rooms giving the spoils to who are the most aggressive and offer the most stinging rebukes. The primary system we have is perfectly designed to delight the political junkie, by creating valuable media events, and poorly designed for vetting future presidents.

speech gives you the freedom to unveil insights in the order that conveys information in the most persuasive and engaging manner possible.

Engage with Stories The fact that the five-stage Venture Scape follows a traditional story plot makes storytelling a particularly effective communication tool during your venture.

We live in the Age of Spectacle. Spectacle promises to engage us, to mediate between us and objective reality in nonjudgmental ways. Very like the promise of nuclear energy: to be safe, clean, and cheap, but turned out to be dangerous, dirty (contaminated), and expensive. The promise made by the spectacle has been forfeited. Not only are we not engaged, we are profoundly distanced—unable to discriminate, edit, or measure shock or empathy. The “regime of visual authority [is a] coercive organization of images according to a stopwatch” and passes its organization off to us as a simulacrum of the real.

The "freedom of speech" fight can hardly even be called a debate. Instead, it is one-sided with the powerful side constantly warping the terms of engagement. Couching opposition to anti-racist speech and protest as a noble fight for freedom of speech is about protecting white people from being criticised. It seems there is a belief among some white people that being accused of racism is far worse than actual racism.

Short and long bios Contracts Cover page and introduction to a proposal Engagement letter Quick blurb/elevator speech—what do you do? What are your focus areas? Letters of recommendation Logo and company graphic art Nondisclosure agreements Presentations of all sorts Progress reports Proposals and statements of work Publications list Marketing trifold (less important now than in the past) Work programs and check-off lists Examples of frequently requested spreadsheets. For example, you may be in a business that uses six sigma for quality control. Graphs, statistical reports, and so on can typically be modified quickly from one client to the next. Unless you are in the graphic arts or publications business itself, there is no need to be original. Inspiring ideas permeate the Internet.

freedom of press and speech. A socialist government totally annihilates these freedoms. It turns the press and every public forum into a vehicle of hysterical propaganda in its own behalf, and it engages in the relentless persecution of everyone who dares to deviate by so much as an inch from its official party line.

Audre Lorde’s writing is an impulse toward wholeness. What she says and how she says it engages us both emotionally and intellectually.

I noticed Jim and Kalveer standing among some trees approximately 50 metres away, their cameras pointing towards us. My heart was pounding. I went down on one knee. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Danielle asked. I smiled and started to recite a carefully prepared speech telling her what she meant to me and concluding with the words: ‘You’re the one I want to live with forever. Danielle, will you marry me?’ At that moment, I took the engagement ring out of my pocket and presented it to her. She looked at it, promptly burst into tears and fell into my arms. A few seconds passed. I held her tightly. A few more seconds passed. I was starting to feel just slightly concerned. Danielle is a strong-minded person, not afraid to say what she thinks. As these torturous seconds passed, I considered it was not entirely impossible that she could turn to me and say, ‘Sorry, bud, that was a nice presentation but this is not going to happen. Would you mind if we go back to Bangalore?’ I was getting anxious. ‘Listen, are you going to give me an answer?’ She finally looked up at me and said: ‘Yes.’ We

Valiant warriors of Ha-Ran-Fel–and brave and noble allies who have joined us–our hour has come! We stand at the threshold: For some, the threshold of eternity; for others, the threshold of a new era. The malignancy spawned in the east now snakes its tendrils across our land to bind us. . .to choke and extinguish us. . .and to replace our young with its own. It comes not with the conventional weapons of warfare, but with magic and devilry. It comes without honorable rules of engagement, for this is not a fair fight. We know nothing of witchcraft or conjuring demons. We cannot hope to defeat such evil with what we know. But some among us will find the way with what lives in their hearts. They will effect the enemy’s destruction. From them will victory spring! For those who fall, the light of heaven will shatter the darkness of death! Those who live will see the dawning of a new day, a glad day, a day of peace and freedom! They will multiply and grow mightier than any who ever lived before! WE FIGHT!! King Ruelon’s final speech.

Valiant warriors of Ha-Ran-Fel–and brave and noble allies who have joined us–our hour has come! We stand at the threshold: For some, the threshold of eternity; for others, the threshold of a new era. The malignancy spawned in the east now snakes its tendrils across our land to bind us. . .to choke and extinguish us. . .and to replace our young with its own. It comes not with the conventional weapons of warfare, but with magic and devilry. It comes without honorable rules of engagement, for this is not a fair fight. We know nothing of witchcraft or conjuring demons. We cannot hope to defeat such evil with what we know. But some among us will find the way with what lives in their hearts. They will effect the enemy’s destruction. From them will victory spring! For those who fall, the light of heaven will shatter the darkness of death! Those who live will see the dawning of a new day, a glad day, a day of peace and freedom! They will multiply and grow mightier than any who ever lived before!” “WE FIGHT!!” King Ruelon’s final speech.

Yesterday you learned of the Eightfold Path.  Beginning today for the next 7 days try to focus on one of those eight right ways.  Make this the focus of your practice outside of your dedicated time reading and chanting.  You might pick Right Speech and then for the rest of the week try, to the best of your ability, to only engage in speech that, not only causes no harm, but encourages good.  Or you might pick another of the Eight Right Things.  Focus on one, maybe even write it on a card and tape it to your computer or bathroom mirror to remind you of your intention.  Actually this kind of setting your intention is engaging in another of the Eight Right Ways, that of Right Intention.  See how easy it is to do this practice, or at least try to do the practice.  If in the course of this week you should mess up or forget, please do not worry about it.  Use it as a lesson to advance your growth.

Why the double standard of counting dignitary harm (in addition to material harms) against conscience claims, but not at all against speech? This is a challenge to which progressives have no response” (p. 172). I have two responses, both of which show that there is no double standard. First, Anderson and Girgis get the relevant distinction wrong. It is not between freedom of speech and freedom of conscience/religion but between freedom of speech and freedom of action. The Kleins of Sweet Cakes engaged in both, and both were an expression of religious conscience. It was their refusal of service, however—their action, not their speech—that triggered government sanction. The right question to ask, then, is why count dignitary harm against freedom of action (religious or otherwise) but not against freedom of speech (religious or otherwise)? The answer to that question is that in general, actions pose greater risks than speech.

After this manner conceive that a flatterer differs from a friend: for it often happens to both that they engage in the same employments and the same associations; but the one differs from the other in use, in the end, and in the disposition of the soul: for the friend considers that which appears to him to be good to belong also in common to his friend; and, whether this proves to be painful or pleasant, he partakes equally of it with him; but the flatterer, following his own desires, conducts the association to his own advantage. The friend desires an equality of good, the flatterer his own private good. The one aspires after equal honour in virtue, the other after superiority in pleasure. The one in conversation desires an equal freedom of speech, the other servile submission. The one loves truth in association, the other deception; and the one looks to future emolument, but the other to present delight. The one requires to be reminded of his good actions, the other wishes them to be involved in oblivion. The one takes care of the possessions of his friend, as of things common, the other destroys them, as being the property of another. The company of a friend in prosperity is most opportune, and in calamity is most equal; but a flatterer can never be satiated with prosperity, and in adversity he is never to be seen. Friendship is laudable, flattery detestable; for friendship attends to equality of retribution, but this flattery mutilates: for he who pays servile attention to another through indigence, that his wants may be supplied, so far as he does not receive an equal submission in return, will reprobate the inequality. A friend, when his friendship is concealed, is unhappy; on the contrary, a flatterer is miserable when is flattery is not concealed. Friendship when tried is strengthened, flattery is confuted, by time. Friendship requires not to be corroborated by advantage, but flattery cannot subsist without profit; and if men have any communion with the divinities, the pious man is a friend to divinity, but the superstitious is a flatterer of divinity; and the pious man is blessed, but the superstitious is miserable.