Justified Memorable Quotes

I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of gray ice, trying to break through to what is underneath or I am dead. I can feel the surface trembling—it seems ready to give but it never does. I am uninterested in current events. How can I justify this? How can I explain it? I don't want to have the same vocabulary I've always had. I want something richer, broader, more penetrating and powerful.

His mouth was on mine then, and I couldn't fight him. Not because he was so many thousand times stronger than me, but because my will crumbled into dust the second our lips met. This kiss was not quite as careful as others I remembered, which suited me just fine. If I was going to rip myself up further, I might as well get as much in trade as possible. So I kissed him back, my heart pounding out a jagged, disjointed rhythm while my breathing turned to panting and my fingers moved greedily to his face. I could feel his marble body against every line of mine, and I was so glad he hadn't listened to me―there was no pain in the world that would have justified missing this. His hand memorized my face, the same way mine were tracing his, and, in the brief seconds when his lips were free, he whispered my name.

One reader of an early draft of this chapter complained at this point, saying that by treating the hypothesis of God as just one more scientific hypothesis, to be evaluated by the standards of science in particular and rational thought in general, Dawkins and I are ignoring the very widespread claim by believers in God that their faith is quite beyond reason, not a matter to which such mundane methods of testing applies. It is not just unsympathetic, he claimed, but strictly unwarranted for me simply to assume that the scientific method continues to apply with full force in this domain of truth. Very well, let's consider the objection. I doubt that the defender of religion will find it attractive, once we explore it carefully. The philosopher Ronaldo de Souza once memorably described philosophical theology as "intellectual tennis without a net," and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgement was up. But we can lower it if you really want to. It's your serve. Whatever you serve, suppose I return service rudely as follows: "What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tin foil. That's not much of a God to worship!". If you then volley back, demanding to know how I can logically justify my claim that your serve has such a preposterous implication, I will reply: "oh, do you want the net up for my returns, but not for your serves? Either way the net stays up, or it stays down. If the net is down there are no rules and anybody can say anything, a mug's game if there ever was one. I have been giving you the benefit of the assumption that you would not waste your own time or mine by playing with the net down.

He who is lucid, understands himself, explains himself, justifies himself, and masters his acts will never execute a memorable action. Psychology is the hero’s tomb.

When heuristics don’t yield the results we expect, you’d think we would eventually realize that something’s wrong. Even if we don’t locate the biases, we should be able to see the discrepancy between what we wanted and what we got, right? Well, not necessarily. As it turns out, we have biases that support our biases! If we’re partial to one option—perhaps because it’s more memorable, or framed to minimize loss, or seemingly consistent with a promising pattern—we tend to search for information that will justify choosing that option. On the one hand, it’s sensible to make choices that we can defend with data and a list of reasons. On the other hand, if we’re not careful, we’re likely to conduct an imbalanced analysis, falling prey to a cluster of errors collectively known as “confirmation biases.

Unistructural Memorize, identify, recognize, count, define, draw, find, label, match, name, quote, recall, recite, order, tell, write, imitate Multistructural Classify, describe, list, report, discuss, illustrate, select, narrate, compute, sequence, outline, separate Relational Apply, integrate, analyse, explain, predict, conclude, summarize (précis), review, argue, transfer, make a plan, characterize, compare, contrast, differentiate, organize, debate, make a case, construct, review and rewrite, examine, translate, paraphrase, solve a problem Extended abstract Theorize, hypothesize, generalize, reflect, generate, create, compose, invent, originate, prove from first principles, make an original case, solve from first principles Table 7.2  Some more ILO verbs from Bloom’s revised taxonomy Remembering Define, describe, draw, find, identify, label, list, match, name, quote, recall, recite, tell, write Understanding Classify, compare, conclude, demonstrate, discuss, exemplify, explain, identify, illustrate, interpret, paraphrase, predict, report Applying Apply, change, choose, compute, dramatize, implement, interview, prepare, produce, role play, select, show, transfer, use Analysing Analyse, characterize, classify, compare, contrast, debate, deconstruct, deduce, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, organize, outline, relate, research, separate, structure Evaluating Appraise, argue, assess, choose, conclude, critique, decide, evaluate, judge, justify, monitor, predict, prioritize, prove, rank, rate, select Creating Compose, construct, create, design, develop, generate, hypothesize, invent, make, perform, plan, produce

As it is also written, “For by grace you have been saved through faith…” Eph 2:8  And also in regard to the word and the gospel it is written, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." Rom 1:17  Therefore seeing that a man is justified by the word of God, and living by faith in it, one must consider how to obtain the word of God. Has it not been handed to us from God since the days of old? We understand that the Lord must work in us and through us, but how does He do this in regard to salvation? Does He leave it up to us and our weak flesh to practice His word? Or is He willing to help us, and work through us? If then He will work through us and help us, then He will also help us retain the word we practice for salvation. But in regard to faith being the work of God,  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Eph 2:8-9 Salvation comes through faith in the word of God and practicing it through the inner working of the Spirit. But if He does not help us retain it, how can we practice what we do not know? How can we know unless we study it diligently? God will help us during our study time because it’s for our salvation. Is wisdom something we need to seek? Absolutely! But God is always willing to give it to you if you’re willing to pursue it. But where does wisdom come from? As it is written, “For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” Pro 2:6  Seeing then and knowledge and understanding come from the mouth of God we need to be diligent to listen to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our strength in our weakness in all things. It is He who works through us as we practice and meditate on the word of God. As it is written, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Php 2:13  Likewise as we memorize the word of God it is He who can help us retain the word of God, for later practice. But we are called to diligently seek His wisdom and His truth. As it is written,

I wasn't an Irishman, but I knew how it felt to have someone standing over you, controlling your life and wanting to call it something else. From the people at Christian Fellowship to First Academy to my parents to Confucius to thousands of years of ass-backwards Chinese thinking, I knew how it felt. Everything my parents did to me and their parents did to them was justified under the banner of Tradition, Family, and Culture. And when it wasn't them it was someone impressing Christianity on me and when it wasn't Christianity it was whiteness. Those other kids had more vocabs than me and more knowledge of the American canon. At that age, I didn't know what Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, or even A Christmas Story was. There were so many gaps in my American cultural understanding because we just didn't get it at home. It always hurt me writing or debating because I didn't share their references, but that summer I was determined that it wouldn't stop me. I wouldn't try to talk about things they knew anymore. I would use the references that made sense to me and make them catch up. Before I ever read a marketing book in college, I understood what "pull marketing" was. Unlike the other kids, I wasn't memorizing words or events. I was speaking from experience. For the first time, I wasn't arguing just to argue. I wasn't wildin' out' couse Iw as bored. I finally found another mind I fucked with and it was just my luck he was dead-ass Irishman. (123-124)

Ben sat on his bed, reading Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments. Unlike many of the people he’d met in his classes, his interest in philosophy wasn’t pure posturing. He didn’t read Nietzsche so he could justify his youthful angst and he didn’t memorize lines of Sartre so that he could wax intellectual with the arty kids who smoked clove cigarettes in the dorm lounge. Rather, he loved philosophy because it fashioned a slim doorway to abstraction. It granted him moments of reprieve from the solid, too-sharply defined world, moments in which he could wade in contemplative formlessness. Ideas didn’t require substance or volume; they merely required someone to believe. Ben found solace in this controlled ephemerality.

The clear-sighted person who understands himself, explains himself, justifies himself, and dominates his action will never make a memorable gesture. Psychology is the hero’s grave.

Therefore Christ cannot be found in the place of human wisdom, but in the place of faith. Faith comes from the heart, and when the Holy Spirit enters the heart of man he finds salvation. When the Holy Spirit enters, love erupts from the heart by faith, and it justifies a man. The nature of love fulfills the perfect law of liberty. Therefore it is not with the mind we find Christ for salvation, but with the heart.

Or rather, what other people called ambition often felt—to me—more like justifying my own existence. If I’d failed at happiness, then success seemed like a consolation prize. As if some tribunal in the afterlife would ask, Were you happy? And I could say, Well, no. But I did all this.