“
drinking beer with friends is perhaps the most underestimated of all Reformation insights and essential to ongoing reform; and wasting time with a choice friend or two on a regular basis might be the best investment of time you ever make.
”
”
Carl R. Trueman (Fools Rush In Where Monkeys Fear to Tread: Taking Aim at Everyone)
“
Whilst Man, however well-behaved,
At best is but a monkey shaved!
”
”
Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species)
“
Best day of my life was January 9, 1997. I was eight years old and my mom and I went to the zoo on a class trip. I liked the bears. She liked the monkeys. Best day ever. End of story.
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
(About changing faith) At our best, Christians embrace it, leaving enough space within orthodoxy for God to surprise us every now and then.
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions)
“
I love it here in Boston and I love studying medicine. But
it’s not home. Dublin is home. Being back with you felt like home. I miss my
best friend.
I’ve met some great guys here, but I didn’t grow up with any of them
playing cops and robbers in my back garden. I don’t feel like they are real
friends. I haven’t kicked them in the shins, stayed up all night on Santa
watch with them, hung from trees pretending to be monkeys, played hotel,
or laughed my heart out as their stomachs were pumped. It’s kind of hard to
beat that.
”
”
Cecelia Ahern (Love, Rosie)
“
God, she was two seconds from jumping on his back like a monkey and strangling him.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout
“
And you, my best friend on earth, my soul sister who shares Chunky Monkey scoops and beefcake e-mails at the drop of a hat, the woman who made me wear a frothy, ruffled lime-colored bridesmaid dress that added fifteen pounds to my hips, are going to spill your guts to me, aren’t you? (Sunshine)
No fair and the dress wasn’t lime, it was mint. (Selena)
It was lime-icky green and I looked like a sick pistachio. (Sunshine)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Embrace (Dark-Hunter, #2))
“
It was in the crypt," Loren said, gesturing. "We just managed to get it here after you pulled your little surprise on us."
"You're the best." I blew him a kiss.
"Hey, what about me?" Quain asked.
"You're second best, as always," Loren said.
”
”
Maria V. Snyder (Taste of Darkness (Healer, #3))
“
Because whatever has happened to humanity, whatever is currently happening to humanity, it is happening to all of us. No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people. My illness proved that. As well as my understanding that Generose's lost daughter belongs to all of us. It is up to all of us to find her; it is up to us to do our best to make her whole again. There is only one daughter, one father, one mother, one son, one aunt or uncle, one dog, one cat, donkey, monkey, or goat in the universe, after all: the one right in front of you.
”
”
Alice Walker (Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel)
“
I was having the best dream,” he croaked. “I was flying over a jungle on the back of a dragon and I fell off and tumbled down into the trees… and then I got adopted by a gang of monkeys. They made me their king.
”
”
Jessica Townsend (Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor, #2))
“
Monkey now produced his staff and the two of them did their best to kill each other, like the affectionate in-laws they were.
”
”
Wu Cheng'en (Monkey King: Journey to the West)
“
Tell me, Briny,” Natalie said, “are you still having fun?” He looked around at the noisy, crowded, evil-smelling ward, where the Polish women were helplessly bringing new life into a city which was being dynamited to death by the Germans, going through unpostponable birth pangs with the best care the dying city could give them. “More fun than a barrel of monkeys.
”
”
Herman Wouk (The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1))
“
Stevie: "If you think he's a lecher and all men are disgusting, why do you want me to date?"
Zena: "Because, Stevie. Now and then, when the moon is full and bluish, when the galaxy is all calm and peaceful and serenity rules and even the falling stars are falling gracefully, and the wind creates a beautiful song, that's when you find one outstanding man. Kind. Loyal. Funny and smart, great in bed but not kinky. A lover in his head and in his body. A man who doesn't think as a dick-obsessed monkey with a brain the size of a testicle, but one who is thoughtful and can hold his emotions in one hand and hug you close with the other. A man who is a hunky, manly man but who can talk to you like your best girlfriend, because that's what he wants to be for you. Your best friend."
(Page 44)
”
”
Cathy Lamb (Such a Pretty Face)
“
Little girls are the nicest things that can happen to people. They are born with a bit of angel-shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes, there is always enough left to lasso your heart—even when they are sitting in the mud, or crying temperamental tears, or parading up the street in Mother’s best clothes.
A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves, yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.
God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the speed of a gazelle, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten, and to top it all off He adds the mysterious mind of a woman.
A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, first grade, noisemakers, the girl next door, dolls, make-believe, dancing lessons, ice cream, kitchens, coloring books, make-up, cans of water, going visiting, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn’t care so much for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, hand-me-downs, straight chairs, vegetables, snowsuits, or staying in the front yard.
She is loudest when you are thinking, the prettiest when she has provoked you, the busiest at bedtime, the quietest when you want to show her off, and the most flirtatious when she absolutely must not get the best of you again. Who else can cause you more grief, joy, irritation, satisfaction, embarrassment, and genuine delight than this combination of Eve, Salome, and Florence Nightingale.
She can muss up your home, your hair, and your dignity—spend your money, your time, and your patience—and just when your temper is ready to crack, her sunshine peeks through and you’ve lost again. Yes, she is a nerve-wracking nuisance, just a noisy bundle of mischief. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess—when it seems you are pretty much of a fool after all—she can make you a king when she climbs on your knee and whispers, "I love you best of all!
”
”
Alan Beck
“
If you want to sing,
sing like today is your last.
If you want to dance,
dance like today is your last.
If you want to laugh,
laugh like today is your last.
If birds sing without worrying
about who is listening to them,
and monkeys dance without worrying
about who is watching them,
and hyenas laugh without worrying
about who is mocking them,
then you too must do what you do best
without worrying about who is ridiculing you.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
I wiped the shit from my shoes again and again, still going about my business, that of being alive, the best I could.
”
”
Patti Smith (Year of the Monkey)
“
Invariably, I will be referred to Gleason Archer's massive Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, a heavy volume that seeks to provide the reader with sound explanations for every conceivable puzzle found within the Bible - from whether God approved of Rahab's lie, to where Cain got his wife. (Note to well-meaning apologists: it's not always the best idea to present a skeptic with a five-hundred-page book listing hundreds of apparent contradictions in Scripture when the skeptic didn't even know that half of them existed before you recommended it.)
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions)
“
If birds sing without worrying about who is listening to them, and monkeys dance without worrying about who is watching them, and hyenas laugh without worrying about who is mocking them, then you too must do what you do best without worrying about who is ridiculing you.
”
”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“
Cherry Loot told Sergeant Burke, “I’m gonna make the best of this fuck-a-monkey show. Don’t mean fuck to me if it’s illegal, unjustified, and sinful. Today we’re heroes, tomorrow we’re the Nazis. You never know. Nobody on this ball knows shit.” It was an attitude refreshing if not outright inspiring.
”
”
Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke)
“
What is writing? It’s me, the author, taking the state inside my mind and, via the gift of language, grafting it onto yours. But man invented language in order to better deceive, not inform. That state I’m transmitting is often a false one, but you judge it not by the depth of its emotion in my mind, but by the beauty and pungency of the thought in yours. Thus the best deceivers are called articulate, as they make listeners and readers fall in love with the thoughts projected into their heads. It’s the essential step in getting men to write you large checks, women to take off their clothes, and the crowd to read and repeat what you’ve thought. All with mere words: memes of meaning strung together according to grammar and good taste. Astonishing when you think about it.
”
”
Antonio García Martínez (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley)
“
Studies suggest How may I help you officer? is the single most disarming thing to say and not What’s the problem? Studies suggest it’s best the help reply My pleasure and not No problem. Studies suggest it’s best not to mention problem in front of power even to say there is none. Gloria Steinem says women lose power as they age and yet the loudest voice in my head is my mother. Studies show the mother we have in mind isn’t the mother that exists. Mine says: What the fuck are you crying for? Studies show the baby monkey will pick the fake monkey with fake fur over the furless wire monkey with milk, without contest. Studies show to negate something is to think it anyway. I’m not sad. I’m not sad. Studies recommend regular expressions of gratitude and internal check-ins. Studies define assertiveness as self-respect cut with deference. Enough, the wire mother says. History is a kind of study. History says we forgave the executioner. Before we mopped the blood we asked: Lord Judge, have I executed well? Studies suggest yes. What the fuck are you crying for, officer? the wire mother teaches me to say, while America suggest Solmaz, have you thanked your executioner today?
”
”
Solmaz Sharif (Look: Poems)
“
Our best answers in defense of Christianity have always been useless clanging symbols unless our lives have inspired the world to ask.
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions)
“
Schultz’s group has shown that the magnitude of an anticipatory dopamine rise reflects two variables. First is the size of the anticipated reward. A monkey has learned that a light
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
When it comes to politics, it's best to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
That's a philosophy a lot of my monkeys used to share, said the Monkey King. But I disagree with it.
”
”
Ken Liu (The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories)
“
Naysayers at their polite best chided the rewilders for romanticizing the past; at their sniping worst, for tempting a 'Jurassic Park' disaster. To these the rewilders quietly voiced a sad and stinging reply. The most dangerous experiment is already underway. The future most to be feared is the one now dictated by the status quo. In vanquishing our most fearsome beasts from the modern world, we have released worse monsters from the compound. They come in disarmingly meek and insidious forms, in chewing plagues of hoofed beasts and sweeping hordes of rats and cats and second-order predators. They come in the form of denuded seascapes and barren forests, ruled by jellyfish and urchins, killer deer and sociopathic monkeys. They come as haunting demons of the human mind. In conquering the fearsome beasts, the conquerors had unwittingly orphaned themselves.
”
”
William Stolzenburg (Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators)
“
Holy tit fungus! Did you give Sasquatch an autopsy in here? God almighty, girl.” He waddled back into the hallway, this time holding his privates with both hands. “You balded the dick mitten. Nice. Let me see it.”
He looked at her like she might drop trou simply because he suggested it.
“I would rather lick a monkey’s armpit than show you my vagina.” Dove gave him the finger.
“You know what I love best about a naked muff hole? It looks just like a camel’s dangly lips.” Duke extended his own lips to make them appear gummy and slack.
”
”
Debra Anastasia (Fire Down Below (Gynazule #1))
“
But imagine if we were the only people left. The last men on earth. I’d be the best golfer in the world right now. You’d be the only priest. And Ghost would be the only Sikh. Imagine that. A four-hundred-year religion terminating in a dope-head grease monkey.”
“I thought you liked the bloke.”
“I do. But think about it. All the people that made you feel worthless and small down the years. The bullies and bosses. All gone. It’s exhilarating, if you think about it. Freedom from other people’s expectations. We can finally start living for ourselves.
”
”
Adam Baker (Outpost (Outpost, #1))
“
I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one's beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged.
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions)
“
people who spend their time, and earn their living, studying a particular topic produce poorer predictions than dart-throwing monkeys who would have distributed their choices evenly over the options. Even in the region they knew best, experts were not significantly better than nonspecialists.
”
”
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
“
In other words, people who spend their time, and earn their living, studying a particular topic produce poorer predictions than dart-throwing monkeys who would have distributed their choices evenly over the options. Even in the region they knew best, experts were not significantly better than nonspecialists.
”
”
Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow)
“
Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women make their husbands do to prove their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the endless small surrenders. We call these men the dancing monkeys. Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark,and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a good time, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, he came down with a case of the dancing monkeys – poor Jennifer was having a “real stressful week” and really needed him at home.’ Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks because his girlfriend really needs him to stop by some bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of town. So they can finally meet. And so she can show how obedient her monkey is: He comes when I call, and look how well groomed! Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do this chore when you get a chance and by that I mean now. And definitely, definitely, give up the things you love for me, so I will have proof that you love me best. It’s the female pissing contest – as we swan around our book clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than being able to detail the sacrifices our men make for us. A call-and-response, the response being: ‘Ohhh, that’s so sweet.’ I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role – the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role. Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink. I like to think I am confident and secure and mature enough to know Nick loves me without him constantly proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios to repeat to my friends, I am content with letting him be himself. I don’t know why women find that so hard.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
“
I have a feeling that if Darwin turns out to be right, the Christian faith won’t fall apart after all. Faith is more resilient than that. Like a living organism, it has a remarkable ability to adapt to change. At our best, Christians embrace this quality, leaving enough space within orthodoxy for God to surprise us every now and then. At our worst, we kick and scream our way through each and every change, burning books and bridges and even people along the way. But if we can adjust to Galileo’s universe, we can adjust to Darwin’s biology — even the part about the monkeys. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that faith can survive just about anything, so long as it’s able to evolve.
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions)
“
When male vervet monkeys fight in their wars with other groups of monkeys to protect their territory or to get food, female monkeys reward the best surviving “warriors” by grooming them. The social status of these warrior monkeys goes up, and therefore more female vervet monkeys want to mate with them. In contrast, the female monkeys ignore and “snap” at the male monkeys who abstain from battle.2
”
”
Warren Farrell (The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It)
“
A boy with a monkey on his shoulders was walking along the street as he passed a cop who just said, "Hey, small boy, I guess you had best bring that monkey to the zoo." The next day, the boy walked along the street with a monkey on his shoulders again as he approached the same cop. The cop said, "Hey, I assumed, I told you to take that monkey to the zoo!" The child replied, "I did! Today I am bringing him to the theatre.
”
”
Karen Clark (Try Not to Laugh Book: You Laugh, I Win Challenge Joke Book)
“
To my way of thinking there's something wrong, or missing, with any person who hasn't got a soft spot in their heart for an animal of some kind. With most folks the dog stands highest as man's friend, then comes the horse, with others the cat is liked best as a pet, or a monkey is fussed over; but whatever kind of animal it is a person likes, it's all hunkydory so long as there's a place in the heart for one or a few of them.
”
”
Will James (Smoky the Cow Horse)
“
My job is never boring," Staples said. "There's nuts-and-bolts stuff like getting the tarpaulin over the shaft when it rains, and so in. Cataloging and reshelving. The shelves are in a shocking state. And when you've got everything ever written or lost to keep track of, it's quite a job. And there's fetching books.
"I used to really look forward to requests for books way down in the abyss. We'd all rope up, follow our lines down for miles. The order falls apart a way down but you learn to sniff out class-marks. Sometimes we'd be gone for weeks, fetching volumes.' She spoke with a faraway voice.
"There are risks. Hunters, animals, and accidents. Ropes that snap. Sometimes someone gets separated. Twenty years ago, I was in a group looking for a book someone had requested. I remember, it was called 'Oh, All Right Then': Bartleby Returns. We were led by Ptolemy Yes. He was the man taught me. Best librarian there's ever been, some say.
"Anyway, after weeks of searching, we ran out of food and had to turn back. No one likes it when we fail, so none of us were feeling great.
"We felt that much worse when we realized that we'd lost Ptolemy.
"Some people say he went off deliberately. That he couldn't bear not to find the book. That he's out there still in the Wordhoard Abyss, living off shelf-monkeys, looking. And that he'll be back one day, book in his hand.
”
”
China Miéville (Un Lun Dun)
“
It’s just,” Bobbi whispered, “not many women your age—”
“Oh. I get it. It’s because I’m an old woman.”
Etta had raised her voice at this so that the comment sailed up and down the table, earning Bobbi North looks that implied she had just disemboweled a baby monkey on her dinner plate. She quickly turned to the old geezer on her right, realized that was not the best choice and that she was pretty much stuck with the monkey on the plate. She asked the waiter for wine.
”
”
Martha Grimes (The Knowledge (Richard Jury #24))
“
Some people contend that the English language is a living, breathing organism wherein the definitions of words and rules should change to reflect their mass misuse. I contend that English is already an extraordinarily difficult language to teach. Monkeying with English to legitimize common errors would not make the language easier to learn and love. English should not stoop to embrace the lowest common denominator. Rather, society should step up and grant the language the respect it deserves.
”
”
Terry Fallis (The Best Laid Plans)
“
She saw the different times at sea—calm blue days, raw pea-green ones, others when the skies turned black and thunderbolts blasted the masts, and the galloping waves. The ship then leaned this way, another way, seeming to want to throw herself right over and upside down. Had Art ever been frightened? Maybe only once. One of the earliest memories, this. Molly standing braced, holding Art, two or three years old, in her arms. ‘What a spectacle!’ cried Molly. ‘Look—how beautiful it is!’ And then, ‘Don’t ever be afraid of the sea. She’s the best friend out kind have got. Better than any land, however fair. Respect the sea, yes, but don’t ever think what the sea does is cruel or unjust. People are that. The sea is only herself. And this ship—she’s lucky. She’s friends with this sea. They know how to behave with each other.’ Exactly then, a great green salt wave swamped the decks. Canvas was being hauled in, Molly’s crew clutching and swinging like monkeys along the masts. Art and Molly, soaked, and Molly saying, ‘And even if we went down, don’t fear that either. Those that the sea keeps sleep among mermaids and pearls and sunken kingdoms. You wouldn’t mind that, would you, love?
”
”
Tanith Lee (Piratica I)
“
Teach him to call it ‘real-life and don’t let him ask what he means by ‘real’. (...) Never having been human (...) you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. (...) Thanks to processes we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. (...) But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is ‘the results of modern investigation’. Do remember you are there to fuddle him.
”
”
Clive Staples Lewis (The Screwtape Letters)
“
Several primate species have communication systems of considerable sophistication. Gelada baboons have 22 different kinds of call, and gorillas have been recorded using some 30 different gestures.34 One of the best studied animal communication systems is the repertoire of alarm calls uttered by the vervet monkeys of East Africa. Vervets lead a perilous existence, at constant risk from eagles, leopards and snakes, and they possess a distinctive warning call for each. When researchers record one of these calls and play it back to other vervets, the monkeys reliably scan the skies in response to the eagle call, look down at the ground at the snake call, and leap into bushes at the leopard call.
”
”
Nicholas Wade (Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors)
“
I lay back with a groan and close my eyes. I am just getting comfortable when two sharp elbows land in my midsection. Hayley crawls on top of me on the couch. I think she must be part monkey. She holds a kid-sized board book in her hand. “Wead,” she says, shoving it in my face. I sit up, tucking her into my lap. I take the book from her and open it, but the words jumble. I turn it upside down. “Once upon a time,” I begin. “Dat’s not how it goes,” she complains. She’s a smart girl. “I know,” I explain. “But books are magical, and if you turn them upside down, there’s a whole new story in the pages.” “Weally?” she asks, her eyes big with wonder. No, not really. But it’s the best I can do, kid. “Really,” I affirm. She wiggles, settling more comfortably in my arms. I start to make up a story based on the upside-down pictures. She listens intently. “Once upon a time, there was a little frog. And his name was Randolf.” “Randolf,” she repeats with a giggle. “And Randolf had one big problem.” “Uh oh,” she breathes. “What kind a problem?” “Randolf wanted to be a prince. But his mommy told him that he couldn’t be a prince since he was just a frog.” I keep reading until I say, “The end.” She lays the book to the side and snuggles into me. I kiss the top of her head because it feels like the right thing to do. And she smells good. “Your story was better than the book’s story,” she says. My heart swells with pride. “Thank you.” If only it was this easy to please the adults of the world.
”
”
Tammy Falkner (Tall, Tatted and Tempting (The Reed Brothers, #1))
“
Your job as an EntreLeader is to make sure when your team member leaves your office they take their monkey with them. The first step is to give them some ideas for options and instruct them to come back with three good ways to solve the problem and a suggested course of action. The next step is to teach your team to come to your office with a problem only after they have found three or more possible solutions and a suggested course of action. That makes for some great discussions and teachable moments as you show them how you would make the call. After solving problems and making the call with your help several times, the best team members begin to see the pattern you use and can do what you do. The final step is very personally rewarding.
”
”
Dave Ramsey (EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches)
“
As I detailed in my TED Talk, I think we all have two main characters in our heads: a rational decision-maker (the adult in your head) and an instant gratification monkey (the child in your head who doesn’t care about consequences and just wants to maximize the ease and pleasure of the current moment). For me, these two are in a constant battle, and the monkey usually wins. But I’ve found that if I turn life into a yin-yang situation—e.g., “work till 6 today, then no work till tomorrow”—it’s much easier to control the monkey in the work period. Knowing he has something fun to look forward to later makes him much more likely to cooperate. In my old system, the monkey was in a constant state of rebellion against a system that never really gave him any dedicated time.
”
”
Timothy Ferriss (Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World)
“
The discovery of mirror neurons was made by Giacomo Rizzolatti, Vittorio Gallase, and Marco Iaccoboni while recording from the brains of monkeys that performed certain goal-directed voluntary actions. For instance, when the monkey reached for a peanut, a certain neuron in its premotor cortex (in the frontal lobes) would fire. Another neuron would fire when the monkey pushed a button, a third neuron when he pulled a lever. The existence of such command neurons that control voluntary movements has been known for decades. Amazingly, a subset of these neurons had an additional peculiar property. The neuron fired not only (say) when the monkey reached for a peanut, but also when it watched another monkey reach for a peanut! These were dubbed “mirror neurons” or “monkey-see-monkey-do” neurons.
”
”
John Brockman (The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness (Best of Edge Series))
“
The final misconception is that evolution is “just a theory.” I will boldly assume that readers who have gotten this far believe in evolution. Opponents inevitably bring up that irritating canard that evolution is unproven, because (following an unuseful convention in the field) it is a “theory” (like, say, germ theory). Evidence for the reality of evolution includes: Numerous examples where changing selective pressures have changed gene frequencies in populations within generations (e.g., bacteria evolving antibiotic resistance). Moreover, there are also examples (mostly insects, given their short generation times) of a species in the process of splitting into two. Voluminous fossil evidence of intermediate forms in numerous taxonomic lineages. Molecular evidence. We share ~98 percent of our genes with the other apes, ~96 percent with monkeys, ~75 percent with dogs, ~20 percent with fruit flies. This indicates that our last common ancestor with other apes lived more recently than our last common ancestor with monkeys, and so on. Geographic evidence. To use Richard Dawkins’s suggestion for dealing with a fundamentalist insisting that all species emerged in their current forms from Noah’s ark—how come all thirty-seven species of lemurs that made landfall on Mt. Ararat in the Armenian highlands hiked over to Madagascar, none dying and leaving fossils in transit? Unintelligent design—oddities explained only by evolution. Why do whales and dolphins have vestigial leg bones? Because they descend from a four-legged terrestrial mammal. Why should we have arrector pili muscles in our skin that produce thoroughly useless gooseflesh? Because of our recent speciation from other apes whose arrector pili muscles were attached to hair, and whose hair stands up during emotional arousal.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
Since leaving Moscow I have encountered an alarming level of ignorance about biological weapons. Some of the best scientists I've encountered in the West say it isn't possible to alter viruses genetically to make reliable weapons, or to store enough of a give pathogen for strategic purposes, or to deliver it in a way that assures maximum killing power. My knowledge and experience tell me that they are wrong. I have written this book to explain why.
There are some who maintain that discussing the subject will cause needless alarm. But existing defenses against these weapons are dangerously inadequate, and when biological terror strikes, as I am convinced it will, public ignorance will only heighten the disaster. The first step we must take to protect ourselves is to understand what biological weapons are and how they work. The alternative is to remain as helpless as the monkeys in the Aral Sea.
”
”
Ken Alibek (Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It)
“
If you look inside "health food" stores these days you will find a bewildering assortment of fresh foods, packaged foods, vitamins, and dietary supplements. In the literature many different types of diets are presented as being "natural," nutritious, and the best for health. If someone says it is healthful to boil foods together, there is someone else who says foods boiled together are only good for making people sick. Some emphasize the essential value of salt in the diet, others say that too much salt causes disease. If there is someone who shuns fruit as yin and food for monkeys, there is someone else who says fruit and vegetables are the very best foods for providing longevity and a happy disposition.
At various times and in various circumstances all of these opinions could be said to be correct, and so people come to be confused. Or rather, to a confused person, all of these theories become material for creating greater confusion.
”
”
Masanobu Fukuoka (The One-Straw Revolution)
“
I see around this marriage and beyond it. I’ll never again go for all the nonsense about marriage. Everybody you lay eyes on, except perhaps a few like you and me, is born of marriage. Do you see anything so exceptional or wonderful about it that makes it such a big deal? Why be fooling around to make this perfect great marriage? What’s it going to save you from? Has it saved anybody—the jerks, the fools, the morons, the schleppers, the jag-offs, the monkeys, rats, rabbits, or the decent unhappy people or what you call nice people? They’re all married or are born of marriages, so how can you pretend to me that it makes a difference that Bob loves Mary who marries Jerry? That’s for the movies. Don’t you see people pondering how to marry for love and getting the blood gypped out of them? Because while they’re looking for the best there is—and I figure that’s what’s wrong with you—everything else gets lost. It’s sad, it’s a pity, but it’s that way.
”
”
Saul Bellow (The Adventures Of Augie March)
“
You know, one time I saw Tiger down at the water hole: he had the biggest testicles of any animal, and the sharpest claws, and two front teeth as long as knives and as sharp as blades. And I said to him, Brother Tiger, you go for a swim, I’ll look after your balls for you. He was so proud of his balls. So he got into the water hole for a swim, and I put his balls on, and left him my own little spider balls. And then, you know what I did? I ran away, fast as my legs would take me
“I didn’t stop till I got to the next town, And I saw Old Monkey there. You lookin’ mighty fine, Anansi, said Old Monkey. I said to him, You know what they all singin’ in the town over there? What are they singin’? he asks me. They singin’ the funniest song, I told him. Then I did a dance, and I sings,
Tiger’s balls, yeah,
I ate Tiger’s balls
Now ain’t nobody gonna stop me ever at all
Nobody put me up against the big black wall
’Cos I ate that Tiger’s testimonials
I ate Tiger’s balls.
“Old Monkey he laughs fit to bust, holding his side and shakin’, and stampin’, then he starts singin’ Tiger’s balls, I ate Tiger’s balls, snappin’ his fingers, spinnin’ around on his two feet. That’s a fine song, he says, I’m goin’ to sing it to all my friends. You do that, I tell him, and I head back to the water hole.
“There’s Tiger, down by the water hole, walkin’ up and down, with his tail switchin’ and swishin’ and his ears and the fur on his neck up as far as they can go, and he’s snappin’ at every insect comes by with his huge old saber teeth, and his eyes flashin’ orange fire. He looks mean and scary and big, but danglin’ between his legs, there’s the littlest balls in the littlest blackest most wrinkledy ball-sack you ever did see.
“Hey, Anansi, he says, when he sees me. You were supposed to be guarding my balls while I went swimming. But when I got out of the swimming hole, there was nothing on the side of the bank but these little black shriveled-up good-for-nothing spider balls I’m wearing.
“I done my best, I tells him, but it was those monkeys, they come by and eat your balls all up, and when I tell them off, then they pulled off my own little balls. And I was so ashamed I ran away.
“You a liar, Anansi, says Tiger. I’m going to eat your liver. But then he hears the monkeys coming from their town to the water hole. A dozen happy monkeys, boppin’ down the path, clickin’ their fingers and singin’ as loud as they could sing,
Tiger’s balls, yeah,
I ate Tiger’s balls
Now ain’t nobody gonna stop me ever at all
Nobody put me up against the big black wall
’Cos I ate that Tiger’s testimonials
I ate Tiger’s balls.
“And Tiger, he growls, and he roars and he’s off into the forest after them, and the monkeys screech and head for the highest trees. And I scratch my nice new big balls, and damn they felt good hangin’ between my skinny legs, and I walk on home. And even today, Tiger keeps chasin’ monkeys. So you all remember: just because you’re small, doesn’t mean you got no power.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
“
He was forever wallowing in the mire, dirtying his nose, scrabbling his face, treading down the backs of his shoes, gaping at flies and chasing the butterflies (over whom his father held sway); he would pee in his shoes, shit over his shirt-tails, [wipe his nose on his sleeves,] dribble snot into his soup and go galumphing about. [He would drink out of his slippers, regularly scratch his belly on wicker-work baskets, cut his teeth on his clogs, get his broth all over his hands, drag his cup through his hair, hide under a wet sack, drink with his mouth full, eat girdle-cake but not bread, bite for a laugh and laugh while he bit, spew in his bowl, let off fat farts, piddle against the sun, leap into the river to avoid the rain, strike while the iron was cold, dream day-dreams, act the goody-goody, skin the renard, clack his teeth like a monkey saying its prayers, get back to his muttons, turn the sows into the meadow, beat the dog to teach the lion, put the cart before the horse, scratch himself where he ne’er did itch, worm secrets out from under your nose, let things slip, gobble the best bits first, shoe grasshoppers, tickle himself to make himself laugh, be a glutton in the kitchen, offer sheaves of straw to the gods, sing Magnificat at Mattins and think it right, eat cabbage and squitter puree, recognize flies in milk, pluck legs off flies, scrape paper clean but scruff up parchment, take to this heels, swig straight from the leathern bottle, reckon up his bill without Mine Host, beat about the bush but snare no birds, believe clouds to be saucepans and pigs’ bladders lanterns, get two grists from the same sack, act the goat to get fed some mash, mistake his fist for a mallet, catch cranes at the first go, link by link his armour make, always look a gift horse in the mouth, tell cock-and-bull stories, store a ripe apple between two green ones, shovel the spoil back into the ditch, save the moon from baying wolves, hope to pick up larks if the heavens fell in, make virtue out of necessity, cut his sops according to his loaf, make no difference twixt shaven and shorn, and skin the renard every day.]
”
”
François Rabelais (Gargantua and Pantagruel)
“
If you need to be needed and if your family, very properly, decline to need you, a pet is the obvious substitute. You can keep it all its life in need of you. You can keep it permanently infantile, reduce it to permanent invalidism, cut it off from all genuine animal well-being, and compensate for this by creating needs for countless little indulgences which only you can grant. The unfortunate creature thus becomes very useful to the rest of the household; it acts as a sump or drain—you are too busy spoiling a dog’s life to spoil theirs. Dogs are better for this purpose than cats: a monkey, I am told, is best of all. Also it is more like the real thing. To be sure, it’s all very bad luck for the animal. But probably it cannot fully realise the wrong you have done it. Better still, you would never know if it did. The most down-trodden human, driven too far, may one day turn and blurt out a terrible truth. Animals can’t speak. Those who say ‘The more I see of men the better I like dogs’—those who find in animals a relief from the demands of human companionship—will be well advised to examine their real reasons.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
“
I don't have a care what you want, you horrid little insect," she hissed through her smile. "The Crown chose you. You are Queen of Fairyland. It's about as appetizing to myself personally as a pie full of filthy, crawling worms, but it's a fact. You can pull and pry and blubber, but that Crown won't come off until you're dead or deposed. I could cut you down in a heart's-breadth, but the rest of these ruffians would have my head. They take regicide terribly personally. Make no mistake; this present predicament is entirely your fault, you and your wretched Dodo's Egg. You will want my help to sort it limb from limb. You are a stranger in Fairyland—oh, it's charming how many little vacations you take here! But this is not your home. You don't know these people from a beef supper. But I do. I recognize each and every one. And if you show them that you are a vicious little fool with no more head on her shoulders than a drunken ostrich, they will gobble you up and dab their mouths with that thing you call a dress. You may not like me, but I have survived far more towering acts of mythic stupidity than you. I am good. I know what power weighs. If you have any wisdom in your silly monkey head, from this moment until the end of your reign—which I do hope will come quickly—you and I shall become the very best of friends. After all, Queen September, a Prime Minister lives to serve.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (Fairyland, #5))
“
What’s an IPO, exactly? A company decides it wants to “float” part of its equity on the public markets, allowing employees and founders to sell private shares to pay them off for years of service, as well as sell shares out of the corporate treasury to have some money in the bank. Large investment banks (such as my former employer Goldman Sachs) form what’s called a “syndicate” (“mafia” might be a better term) wherein they offer to effectively buy those shares from Facebook, and then sell them into the capital markets, usually by pushing it via their sales force onto wealthy clients or institutional investors. That syndicate either guarantees a price (“firm commitment”) or promises to get the best price it can (“best effort”). In the former case, the bank is taking real execution risk, and stands to lose money if it doesn’t engineer a “pop” in the stock on opening day. To mitigate the risk, the bank convinces the offering company to expect a lower price, while simultaneously jacking up what real price the market will bear with a zealous sales pitch to the market’s deepest pockets. Thus, it is absolutely jejune to think that a stock’s rise on opening day is due to clamoring and unexpected interest. Similar to Captain Renault in Casablanca, Wall Street bankers are shocked—shocked!—that there should be such a large and positive price dislocation in the market they just rigged.
”
”
Antonio García Martínez (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley)
“
I was going to make a confession. Then I remembered I don't make them very well. We still need to see the monkeys."
"You don't really think I'm going to let a provocative statement like that slip by,do you?"
"Well...I thought the best way to discourage you was to agree to go out with you-to some place like this, which I thought would bore you to distraction-then be as obnoxious as possible."
"Have you been obnoxious?" His tone was mild and entirely too serious. "I thought you've been behaving very naturally."
"Ouch." Shelby rubbed at the figurative wound under her heart. "In any case, I get the distinct impression that I haven't discouraged you at all."
"Really?" Reaching for more popcorn, he leaned close and spoke gently in her ear "How did you come by that?"
"Oh-" She cleared her throat. "Just a hunch."
He found that tiny show of nerves very rewarding. Yes, the puzzle was coming together, piece by careful piece. It was the way he'd always structured his life. "Odd.And not once since we've been here have I mentioned that I'd like to find a small, dim room and make love to you,over and over."
Warily, Shelby slid her eyes to his. "I'd just as soon you didn't.
"All right." Alan slipped an arm around her waist. "I won't mention it while we're here."
A smile tugged at her mouth, but she shook her head. "It's not going to come to that, Alan.It can't."
"We have a fundamental disagreement." He paused on a bridge. Beneath them, swans floated haughtily. "Because to my way of thinking it has to.
”
”
Nora Roberts (The MacGregors: Alan & Grant (The MacGregors, #3-4))
“
I soon found my feet, and was much less homesick than I was at prep school. Thank God. I learned that with plenty of free time on our hands, and being encouraged to fill the time with “interests,” I could come up with some great adventures.
A couple of my best friends and I started climbing the huge old oak trees around the grounds, finding monkey routes through the branches that allowed us to travel between the trees, high up above the ground.
It was brilliant.
We soon had built a real-life Robin Hood den, with full-on branch swings, pulleys, and balancing bars high up in the treetops.
We crossed the Thames on the high girders above a railway bridge, we built rafts out of old Styrofoam and even made a boat out of an old bathtub to go down the river in. (Sadly this sank, as the water came in through the overflow hole, which was a fundamental flaw. Note to self: Test rafts before committing to big rivers in them.)
We spied on the beautiful French girls who worked in the kitchens, and even made camps on the rooftops overlooking the walkway they used on their way back from work. We would vainly attempt to try and chat them up as they passed.
In between many of these antics we had to work hard academically, as well as dress in ridiculous clothes, consisting of long tailcoats and waistcoats. This developed in me the art of making smart clothes look ragged, and ever since, I have maintained a lifelong love of wearing good-quality clothes in a messy way. It even earned me the nickname of “Scug,” from the deputy-headmaster. In Eton slang this roughly translates as: “A person of no account, and of dirty appearance.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
The greatness of a purpose………!!!
A lion was trying to chase a deer, lion was tryig his best and a monkey while sitting on a tree was watching all this, during running suddenly deer faced a canal infront of her,she closed her eyes and try the biggest jump of her life and she succeeded, when lion reached he think for a while and stopped and he turned back, at this moment monkey came near to lion and said you just lose by a deer, and right this moment lion replied to monkey, this victory didn't belong to deer,
It was the victory of Life,
My Need to fulfill my hunger but her Purpose was Life, that's why she succeeded, he who have great purpose will always succeeded……!!
So greatness of purpose always matters……!!
”
”
zia
“
the only way to tame the monkey mind, to truly glimpse impermanence and defeat our habitual tendency toward clinging, was to meditate—and I had absolutely no intention of following their advice. Meditation struck me as the distillation of everything that sucked hardest about the granola lifestyle. I pictured myself seated in an unbearable cross-legged position (my disavowal of yoga having left me less limber than I would have liked) in a room that smelled like feet, with a group of smug “practitioners” ringing bells, ogling crystals, intoning om, and attempting to float off into some sort of cosmic goo. My attitude was summed up nicely by Alec Baldwin’s character on 30 Rock, who said, “Meditation is a waste of time, like learning French or kissing after sex.” Compounding my resistance was my extremely limited attention span. (Another of the many reasons I went into TV.) I assumed there was no way my particular mind—whirring at best, at worst a whirlwind—could ever stop thinking.
”
”
Dan Harris (10% Happier)
“
There’s a complicated system allowing agents to express preferences about offices and assignments that all FBI agents must follow. It would take too long to go through the whole thing here, but the FBI does have a very comprehensive approach to soliciting agents’ desires and then determining how best to deploy them. The only problem is that they totally ignore the system. If you ask the average FBI agent, he’ll tell you that the way the Bureau assigns people is that they’ve got a monkey in a room who throws a dart with your name on it at a U.S. map on the wall.
”
”
Joaquín "Jack" García (Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family)
“
I love roundabouts. I absolutely think they're the best invention, and I don't care who invented the pen, the biro; whoever invented the roundabout, they should be up there on that plinth that they've got going on in Trafalgar Square. You can have a little bit of fun with it, you know. Will I go? Will I not go? The other car might go in my lane. There's a bit of a dance going. It's like a samba. Because in this city, sometimes you just come to a sudden gridlock and you think, well I'm waiting for him, he's waiting for me, he's waiting for him, and you've got everyone looking at everyone—who will make the first move? And you begin to move and he begins to move and then you stop, and everyone's being really polite. But every day you get somebody who just doesn't care, a young lad and he doesn't give a monkey's.
”
”
Craig Taylor
“
The power of kings is transitory, like everything else. Royal glory is difficult to climb, like a bamboo; it is hard to hold, being fidgety like a monkey on a treetop; it is balanced precariously, like drops of water on a lotus-leaf; it is changeable, like the path of the wind; it is undependable, like the friendship of a dishonest man; it is difficult to tame, like a serpent; it glistens only for a moment, like a cloud at sunset; it is fragile, like bubbles on the surface of a river; it is elusive, like the treasure attained in a dream. Remember all this, and enjoy your kingdom modestly.
”
”
V.S. Narvane (Best Stories from Indian Classics: A History of Valour and Devotion)
“
Monkeying around with other apes, a monkey was made - called, HUMAN. God is great!
”
”
Fakeer Ishavardas
“
They looked at two future climate scenarios, best case and worst case. For each case, they extrapolated out to the years 2020, 2050, and 2080. Even under the best-case climate assumptions, they discovered that global warming would push leishmaniasis across the entire United States into southeastern Canada by 2080. Hundreds of millions of Americans could be exposed—and this is just by wood rats. Since many other species of mammals can host the leish parasite—including cats and dogs—we know the potential problem is far greater than what was described by this study.* A similar spread of the disease is expected in Europe and Asia.
”
”
Douglas Preston (The Lost City of the Monkey God)
“
This drug kills the parasite while sparing (one hopes) the patient. As bad as ampho B is, this one is worse: Even in the best scenarios it has dreadful side effects. We heard from Virgilio that Oscar, who had been bitten on the right side of his face, had almost died of the treatment and was recovering in seclusion in Mexico. He would have a nasty scar for life; he later grew a beard to cover it up and declined to speak of his experience or do any further work at T1.
”
”
Douglas Preston (The Lost City of the Monkey God)
“
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.
”
”
Monkey Writer Mr. Burns hired
“
One World, One Garden—became a popular bumper sticker in the Eden gift shop. Although it was Kilo’s sticker—Shift Happens—that was the best seller.
”
”
Isabella Ides (White Monkey Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy)
“
My Top Eureka Moments: Focusing today is hard…really hard. But it can be learned. It can become a habit. Systems, processes, and routines trump willpower. Letting something go is sometimes the best way to complete it. A not-to-do list is more important than your to-do list. To attain knowledge add things every day; to obtain wisdom subtract things every day. The difference between successful people and very successful people is very successful people say no to almost everything. If you try to help everyone, you will end up helping no one. Neil Armstrong got it right…small steps lead to giant leaps. WWW: What am I doing right now? Why? What should I be doing? Focus on the important, not the immediate. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
”
”
Erik Qualman (The Focus Project: The Not So Simple Art of Doing Less)
“
If I thought I was stubborn, this man was the original outbreak monkey.
”
”
Mariana Zapata (The Best Thing)
“
Traffic and visitor counts are, frankly, B.S., flung about by fools and social media promoters and charlatans like monkeys at the zoo fling feces. It’s meaningless. Only traffic converted to prospects and customers, converted to sales and profits count. Be very wary of all the “new metrics” gobbledygook. There’s no line for it on a bank deposit slip.
”
”
Kennedy Dan S. (The Best of No B.S.: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Anthology)
“
George narrowed his eyes and opened his jaws wide, revealing large yellow fangs, as thick as Ned's wrist. Was this this the end? Was Ned about to be eaten by a bookish monkey? But George the mighty, George the ferocious, George the terrible only yawned, and said in the queens best english: ''My dear boy, are you lost?
”
”
Justin Fisher (Ned's Circus of Marvels)
“
Drinkers at social events will tell you they don’t need to drink. But, when the next bit of anxiety comes up, they grab another glass. Smokers will tell you they enjoy lighting up. They’ll tell you they feel better right after a cigarette. And nearly all of them will tell you they really want to quit—they’re just not quite ready yet. Workaholics will tell you they enjoy what they do, or at least feel a sense of purpose, while stretching themselves to the breaking point. They’ll tell you they have to do it. Some will even admit that it makes them feel important. They’ll promise to get control of their schedules… as soon as the next project is done. Compulsive shoppers love to hit the stores. They call it “stress management” or “retail therapy.” For a few hours, they’ll say, everything is perfect. After they get the goodies home, though, some will tell you they feel empty or even disgusted. They’d love a simpler life—but only if they first can buy the best of everything. People who misuse prescription drugs will tell you the pills ease their pain. The pain from a surgery or disease was so extreme that they got prescribed a medication, and soon they had to take more and more to keep the pain away. They’ll say they hate being constantly constipated and forgetting where they are, but it’s the only way they believe they can function and feel normal.
”
”
Jean-Francois Benoist (Addicted to the Monkey Mind: Change the Programming That Sabotages Your Life)
“
35. What do you call an exploding monkey? A baboom.
”
”
Zakaria Abdulaziz (jokes for kids: The Best funny Jokes, Riddles, Tongue Twisters and Knock-Knock jokes for kids)
“
The Rooster taught me to wake up early and be a leader.
The Butterfly encouraged me to allow a period of struggles to develop strong and look beautiful.
The Squirrel showed me to be alert and fast all the time.
The Dog influenced me to give up my life for my best friend.
The Cat told me to exercise every day. Otherwise, I will be lazy and crazy.
The Fox illustrated me to be subtle and keep my place organized and neat.
The Snake demonstrated to me to hold my peace even if I am capable of attack, harm, or kill.
The Monkey stimulated me to be vocal and communicate.
The Tiger cultivated me to be active and fast.
The Lion cultured me not to be lazy especially if I have strength and power that could be used.
The Eagle was my sample for patience, beauty, courage, bravery, honor, pride, grace, and determination.
The Rat skilled me to find my way out no matter what or how long it takes.
The Chameleon revealed to me the ability to change my color for beauty and protection.
The Fish display to live in peace even if I have to live a short life.
The Delphin enhanced me to be the source of kindness, peace, harmony, and protection.
The Shark enthused me to live as active and restful as I can be.
The Octopus exhibited me to be silent and intelligent.
The Elephant experienced me with the value of cooperation and family. To care for others and respect elders.
The Pig indicated to me to act smart, clean, and shameless.
The Panda appears to me as life is full of white and black times but my thick fur will enable me to survive.
The Kangaroo enthused me to live with pride even if I am unable to walk backward.
The Penguin influenced me to never underestimate a person.
The Deer reveals the ability to sense the presence of hunters before they sense you.
The Turtle brightened me to realize that I will get there no matter how long it takes me while having a shell of protection above me.
The Rabbit reassured me to allow myself to be playful and silly.
The Bat proved to me that I can fly even in darkness.
The Alligator/crocodile alerted me that threat exists.
The Ant moved me to be organized, active, and social with others.
The Bee educated me to be the source of honey and cure for others.
The Horse my best intelligent friend with who I bond. Trained me to recover fast from tough conditions.
The Whale prompted me to take care of my young ones and show them life abilities.
The Crab/Lobster enlightened me not to follow them when they make resolutions depending on previous undesirable events.
”
”
Isaac Nash (The Herok)
“
same question and she told him, "We were monkeys and then we evolved to become like we are now." The child ran back to his father and said, "You lied to me!" His father replied, "No, your mom was talking about her side of the family.
”
”
Various (100 Best Jokes: Family Edition)
“
When it comes to politics, it’s best to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” That’s a philosophy a lot of my monkeys used to share, said the Monkey King. But I disagree with it.
”
”
John Joseph Adams (Futures & Fantasies)
“
It's something I'm seeing everywhere in Vietnam; what makes its food so good, its people so endearing and impressive: pride. It's everywhere. From top to bottom, everyone seems be doing the absolute best they can with what they have, improvising, repairing, innovating. It's a spirit revealed in every noodle stall, every leaky sampan, every swept and combed dirt porch and green rice paddy. You see it in the mud-packed dikes and levees of their centuries-old irrigation system, every monkey bridge, restored shoe, tire turned sandal, literless urban street, patched roof, and swaddled baby in brightly colored hand-knit cap. Think what you want about Vietnam and about communism and about whatever it was that really happened there all those years ago. Ignore, if you care to, the obvious - that the country is, and was always, primarily about family, village, province, and then country - that ideology is a luxury few can afford. You cannot help but be impressed and blown away by the hard work, the attention to detail, the care taken in every facet of daily life, no matter how mundane, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Spend some time in the Mekong Delta and you'll understand how a nation of farmers could beat the largest and most powerful military presence on the planet. Just watch the women in the rice paddies, bent at the waist for eight, ten hours a day, yanking bundles of rice from knee-deep water, then moving them, replanting them. Take a while to examine the interlocked system of stone-age irrigation, unchanged for hundreds and hundreds of years, the level of cooperation necessary among neighbors simply to scratch out a living, and you'll get the idea.
”
”
Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines)
“
I stood in a stupor and would have continued to stand there were it not for a breeze that parted the smoke, revealing a sailor from the Vestal. It was Joe George. He had been following orders to cut the lines that tethered his ship to the Arizona so they could head to open waters. Since there was no one on the Arizona to help on our end, he was taking a fire ax and cutting the lines on his. We called to Joe through a seam in the smoke, motioning for him to throw us a monkey’s fist, which was a lightweight heaving line knotted around a metal ball and attached to a thicker rope. It was a long shot, but our desperate idea was that if we could secure a rope between the two ships, then perhaps we could make it to the Vestal. As Joe rummaged for the ball, I looked at my arms. A sheath of skin from each had peeled off and was draping them. I tore off one length of skin and threw it on the floor of the platform. Then the other. The remaining tissue was a webwork of pink and white and red, some of it black, all of it throbbing. But that didn’t matter. My focus narrowed to Joe George and the ball in his hand. He threw it, but it fell short. He gathered up the line and lobbed it again. Short once more. Joe was perhaps the strongest man in the harbor, an All-Navy boxer whom I described earlier as an “ox.” He was the only man with a prayer of getting that line to us—if he couldn’t do it, then it was impossible. The reality started to sink in: we were going to burn alive. Joe collected the rope once more. For a third time, he tossed it with all his strength. It sailed from one wounded ship to another, across flames, smoke, and carnage. I tracked it all the way and caught it in the air, pulling the smaller line until I felt the main rope. I tied the rope to the railing, cinching it tight, and Joe secured his end. The rope stretched seventy feet to span the water below us, which was forty-five feet down, slicked with fuel that had caught fire. Our only hope was to make it to the Vestal, hand over hand across the rope. But the flesh had been burned off all of our hands, and using those raw fingers and palms to get us across the chasm that separated us would be at best excruciating, and most likely impossible.
”
”
Donald Stratton (All the Gallant Men: An American Sailor's Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor)
“
Extrapolating from the drone and its camera settings, that thing was the best part of a metre long," she remarked at last, shakily.
"That was no fucking monkey," Karst spat.
Behind the Gilgamesh itself, the green world and its orbiting sentinel fell away into obscurity, leaving the ark ship's crew with, at best, mixed feelings about it.
”
”
Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time (Children of Time, #1))
“
Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night’s Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon’s breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … “I think we had best change the plan,” Jon Snow said.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5))
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When flying in panic mode from the house of the brilliant but imperiled human key to a priceless mysterious alien magic treasure to the lair or training ground of her ambitious fighter cyborg monkey-bot brother, it is always best to have precise location markers.
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Samit Basu (The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport)
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»It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times«? You stupid monkey!
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C. Montgomery Burns
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At the zoo, I stood in front of the primate cage listening to a woman marvel at how “presidential” the four-hundred-pound gorilla looked sitting astride a shorn oaken limb, keeping a watchful eye over his caged brood. When her boyfriend, his finger tapping the informational placard, pointed out the “presidential” silverback’s name coincidentally was Baraka, the woman laughed aloud, until she saw me, the other four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, stuffing something that might have been the last of a Big Stick Popsicle or a Chiquita banana in my mouth. Then she became disconsolate, crying and apologizing for having spoken her mind and my having been born. “Some of my best friends are monkeys,” she said accidentally. It was my turn to laugh. I understood where she was coming from. This whole city’s a Freudian slip of the tongue, a concrete hard-on for America’s deeds and misdeeds. Slavery? Manifest Destiny? Laverne & Shirley? Standing by idly while Germany tried to kill every Jew in Europe? Why some of my best friends are the Museum of African Art, the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of Women in the Arts. And furthermore, I’ll have you know, my sister’s daughter is married to an orangutan.
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Paul Beatty (The Sellout)
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Whilst Man, however well-behaved, At best is but a monkey shaved!” ― Charles Darwin “Discharge
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Daniel Hemsworth (Inspirational Quotes from the Greatest Minds in Human History (Part 2): Plato, Galileo Galilei, Aristotle, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Charles Darwin)
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Today religious nuts outnumber monkey nuts in the world.
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Fakeer Ishavardas
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He takes my hand and grips it tightly. He holds it so long that our palms get sweaty and stick together. I extricate mine and pull back. “Sometimes I feel like I can’t get close enough to you,” he says. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking toward where Hayley is climbing on the monkey bars. I scratch my head. “I don’t think we can get much closer than we were last night.” He shakes his head. “Sex is easy. It’s the rest of it that’s difficult.” I look at his profile because he’s still not looking at me. I pretend to make light of his comment and scoff. “I wouldn’t say that I made sex easy.” His gaze suddenly jerks to mine. “We didn’t have sex.” I hold up one finger and grin. “I distinctly remember—” But he cuts me off. “I remember it, too. I remember telling you that I loved you and you telling me you felt the same way. And we made mad, passionate love. Crazy good love like I have never had before. And then we did it again. And then we pulled my daughter into bed with us and that was the best fucking part about the whole thing.” He turns to face me. “I want a family, Friday. Not just a fuck. Tail is easy to come by. You, on the other hand…” He lets his voice trail off. “You’re one of a fucking kind, and I want you to be mine so badly I can taste it. And I’ll still be tasting it next week, next year, and every day following that.” “I’m with you,” I say hesitantly. I don’t know how much more of a commitment I can offer him. I’ve already offered more than I ever thought I would be able to offer anyone. He leans over and hovers over my lips. “I love you so fucking much,” he says. “Just remember that.” He stares into my eyes for a minute, and then he goes to Hayley and races her to the sliding board.
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Tammy Falkner (Proving Paul's Promise (The Reed Brothers, #5))
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Here’s something you may not know: every time you go to Facebook or ESPN.com or wherever, you’re unleashing a mad scramble of money, data, and pixels that involves undersea fiber-optic cables, the world’s best database technologies, and everything that is known about you by greedy strangers. Every. Single. Time. The magic of how this happens is called “real-time bidding” (RTB) exchanges, and we’ll get into the technical details before long. For now, imagine that every time you go to CNN.com, it’s as though a new sell order for one share in your brain is transmitted to a stock exchange. Picture it: individual quanta of human attention sold, bit by bit, like so many million shares of General Motors stock, billions of times a day. Remember Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, Goldman Sachs’s old-school brokerage acquisition, and its disappearing (or disappeared) traders? The company went from hundreds of traders and two programmers to twenty programmers and two traders in a few years. That same process was just starting in the media world circa 2009, and is right now, in 2016, kicking into high gear. As part of that shift, one of the final paroxysms of wasted effort at Adchemy was taking place precisely in the RTB space. An engineer named Matthew McEachen, one of Adchemy’s best, and I built an RTB bidding engine that talked to Google’s huge ad exchange, the figurative New York Stock Exchange of media, and submitted bids and ads at speeds of upwards of one hundred thousand requests per second. We had been ordered to do so only to feed some bullshit line Murthy was laying on potential partners that we were a real-time ads-buying company. Like so much at Adchemy, that technology would be a throwaway, but the knowledge I gained there, from poring over Google’s RTB technical documentation and passing Google’s merciless integration tests with our code, would set me light-years ahead of the clueless product team at Facebook years later.
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Antonio García Martínez (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley)
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Commercial credit is the creation of modern times, and belongs, in its highest perfection, only to the most enlightened and best governed nations. It has raised armies, equipped navies, and, triumphing over the gross power of mere numbers, it has established national superiority on the foundation of intelligence, wealth, and well-directed industry. —Daniel Webster, US Senate speech, March 18, 1834*
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Antonio García Martínez (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley)
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Trudy let out a long breath and hung her head. “Actually, it’s kinda embarrassing,” she said from beneath a curtain of curls. “My mum, she’s been perfecting bioluminescent yeast and lactobacillus strains, some with firefly splices, some with blue glowing Noctiluca plankton splices. Last week, for a lark she grabbed the wrong starter—the perils of using lab equipment for lab work and yogurt starter, I guess—and cultured some goats milk. We enjoyed it for breakfast. The cats got intae it, they ate it as weel. There was also some question, possible contamination of the kraut,” she said brightly. “We first noticed Boo’s—my baby brother, Boo’s short for the ‘Nobu’ in ‘Schrödinger Nobu Duncan Yamaguchi’—glowing nappy later thae evening when I helped put him tae bed. Next we saw the litter box, the glowing cat box, full of glowing cat turds.” She made a disgusted, resigned face. “Ye ken whit they’re like! They play catty-cake with their leavings and as ye can see, whaur kitty’s shitty paws go so does the yellow glow. Nar, I know,” she finished. “Wait, not so fast Yamaguchi,” said Olivia. “Does this mean you’ve been dropping glow sticks off at the pool, leaving bioluminescent raver monkey arms in the bowl, stocking the ole’ lake with incandescent brown trout much?” Trudy looked truly horrified, mortified. “SHUT UP,” she whispered in crisply articulated exasperation, pale green eyes bulging. “I really, really dinna want tae talk aboot it, much less think aboot it,” she added with a convulsive shiver. “Ye, Rosebeetle, dinna even think aboot it either!” He gave her his best what-who-me-? look in reply. “And stop looking at my bahookie!” With difficulty he and Olivia tore their eyes from her curvy derrière. “Glow-poops,” said Byron quickly, “we’re all thinking it.” Trudy glared at him.
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Johannes Johns (The Redwood Revenger)
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I’ve just been to see Audrey,” Beatrix said breathlessly, entering the private upstairs parlor and closing the door. “Poor Mr. Phelan isn’t well, and--well, I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but--here’s a letter from Captain Phelan!”
Prudence smiled and took the letter. “Thank you, Bea. Now, about the officers I met last night…there was a dark-haired lieutenant who asked me to dance, and he--”
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Beatrix asked, watching in dismay as Prudence laid the letter on a side table.
Prudence gave her a quizzical smile. “My, you’re impatient today. You want me to open it this very moment?”
”Yes.” Beatrix promptly sat in a chair upholstered with flower-printed fabric.
“But I want to tell you about the lieutenant.”
“I don’t give a monkey about the lieutenant, I want to hear about Captain Phelan.”
Prudence gave a low chuckle. “I haven’t seen you this excited since you stole that fox that Lord Campdon imported from France last year.”
“I didn’t steal him, I rescued him. Importing a fox for a hunt…I call that very unsporting.” Beatrix gestured to the letter. “Open it!”
Prudence broke the seal, skimmed the letter, and shook her head in amused disbelief. “Now he’s writing about mules.” She rolled her eyes and gave Beatrix the letter.
Miss Prudence Mercer
Stony Cross
Hampshire, England
7 November 1854
Dear Prudence,
Regardless of the reports that describe the British soldier as unflinching, I assure you that when riflemen are under fire, we most certainly duck, bob, and run for cover. Per your advice, I have added a sidestep and a dodge to my repertoire, with excellent results. To my mind, the old fable has been disproved: there are times in life when one definitely wants to be the hare, not the tortoise.
We fought at the southern port of Balaklava on the twenty-fourth of October. Light Brigade was ordered to charge directly into a battery of Russian guns for no comprehensible reason. Five cavalry regiments were mowed down without support. Two hundred men and nearly four hundred horses lost in twenty minutes. More fighting on the fifth of November, at Inkerman.
We went to rescue soldiers stranded on the field before the Russians could reach them. Albert went out with me under a storm of shot and shell, and helped to identify the wounded so we could carry them out of range of the guns. My closest friend in the regiment was killed.
Please thank your friend Prudence for her advice for Albert. His biting is less frequent, and he never goes for me, although he’s taken a few nips at visitors to the tent.
May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon. As for your favorite song…were you aware that “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the official music of the Rifle Brigade?
It seems nearly everyone here has fallen prey to some kind of illness except for me. I’ve had no symptoms of cholera nor any of the other diseases that have swept through both divisions. I feel I should at least feign some kind of digestive problem for the sake of decency.
Regarding the donkey feud: while I have sympathy for Caird and his mare of easy virtue, I feel compelled to point out that the birth of a mule is not at all a bad outcome. Mules are more surefooted than horses, generally healthier, and best of all, they have very expressive ears. And they’re not unduly stubborn, as long they’re managed well. If you wonder at my apparent fondness for mules, I should probably explain that as a boy, I had a pet mule named Hector, after the mule mentioned in the Iliad.
I wouldn’t presume to ask you to wait for me, Pru, but I will ask that you write to me again. I’ve read your last letter more times than I can count. Somehow you’re more real to me now, two thousand miles away, than you ever were before.
Ever yours,
Christopher
P.S. Sketch of Albert included
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Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
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Whenever someone asks for my opinion about other authors, I feel like I'm looking at a monkey asking for opinions on bananas. I would not write books if I didn't know, for a certainty, that I am the best.
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Robin Sacredfire
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Unity is vision.Together and united we form a necessary paradox,not a senseless contradiction.Our Destiny is to unite in strengthening the Banareng creation to our best not to divide. We should build strength to avoid ending up like collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.We have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Banareng creation.It is also up to us to keep building bridges to bring other Nations closer together.
Remember”When two brothers are busy fighting, an evil man can easily attack and rob their poor mother. Mankind should always stay united, standing shoulder to shoulder so evil can never cheat and divide them.
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Nkahloleng Eric Mohlala
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Imagine you’re on a boat with your best friends and the people you most love. All of a sudden, someone who can’t swim falls overboard and starts to drown. You’re the only one there who can save them. What will you do? Will you do a few practice strokes in the pool? Will you go back to your cabin, do your hair, change into swim gear a few times and make sure you look perfect? Or will you jump in, as you are, watch and all, and save them? Think about this the next time you are stalling and chasing perfection like a heroin addict chasing the monkey. People need your help. Get in there and help them now.
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Michael Mackintosh (Get It Done: The 21-Day Mind Hack System to Double Your Productivity and Finish What You Start)
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Ron Gilbert, took inspiration from Sierra games like King’s Quest and Leisure Suit Larry but, more than just the game, what Maniac Mansion (and Ron) gave LucasArts was the underlying engine created for the game, SCUMM‡. This would form the backbone of future hits for the company such as Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Maniac Mansion sequel Day of the Tentacle, two Indiana Jones games (one based on The Last Crusade, the other an original adventure called The Fate of Atlantis), Sam & Max Hit the Road and, most famously, The Secret of Monkey Island. Humour permeates all these games successfully in a way it rarely has before or since. Monkey Island’s ‘insult’ sword-fight is perhaps the best-known example, but there are many more. The jokes even operate between games;
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Steve McNeil (Hey! Listen!: A journey through the golden era of video games)
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Contrary to surprisingly persistent myths about self-publishers, we don’t simply fling word-poop out of the authorial monkey cage and hope for the best.
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David Gaughran (Let's Get Digital: How to Self-Publish, and Why You Should)
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Her answer was immediate: “Climate change.” As the United States becomes warmer, she said, the ranges of the sand fly and the wood rat are both creeping northward, the leish parasite tagging along. The sand fly genus known to spread this kind of leish has now been found in the United States five hundred miles northwest and two hundred miles northeast of its previously established range. A recent study modeled the possible expansion of leishmaniasis across the United States over the next sixty-five years. Since it takes both vector and host to spread the disease, the scientists wanted to know where the sand fly/wood rat combination would migrate together. They looked at two future climate scenarios, best case and worst case. For each case, they extrapolated out to the years 2020, 2050, and 2080. Even under the best-case climate assumptions, they discovered that global warming would push leishmaniasis across the entire United States into southeastern Canada by 2080. Hundreds of millions of Americans could be exposed—and this is just by wood rats. Since many other species of mammals can host the leish parasite—including cats and dogs—we know the potential problem is far greater than what was described by this study.* A similar spread of the disease is expected in Europe and Asia. It seems that leishmaniasis, a disease that has troubled the human race since time immemorial, has in the twenty-first century come into its own. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, told our team bluntly that, by going into the jungle and getting leishmaniasis, “You got a really cold jolt of what it’s like for the bottom billion people on earth.” We were, he said, confronted in a very dramatic way with what many people have to live with their entire lives. If there’s a silver lining to our ordeal, he told us, “it’s that you’ll now be telling your story, calling attention to what is a very prevalent, very serious disease.
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Douglas Preston (The Lost City of the Monkey God)
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It was a long sentence for a monkey.
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Gene Wolfe (The Best of Gene Wolfe)
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Freedom from Uncontrolled Thinking A big habit I’m working on is trying to turn off my “monkey mind.” When we’re children, we’re pretty blank slates. We live very much in the moment. We essentially just react to our environment through our instincts. We live in what I would call the “real world.” Puberty is the onset of desire—the first time you really, really want something and you start long-range planning. You start thinking a lot, building an identity and an ego to get what you want. If you walk down the street and there are a thousand people in the street, all thousand are talking to themselves in their head at any given point. They’re constantly judging everything they see. They’re playing back movies of things that happened to them yesterday. They’re living in fantasy worlds of what’s going to happen tomorrow. They’re just pulled out of base reality. That can be good when you do long-range planning. It can be good when you solve problems. It’s good for us as survival-and-replication machines. I think it’s actually very bad for your happiness. To me, the mind should be a servant and a tool, not a master. My monkey mind should not control and drive me 24/7. I want to break the habit of uncontrolled thinking, which is hard. [4] A busy mind accelerates the passage of subjective time. There is no endpoint to self-awareness and self-discovery. It’s a lifelong process you hopefully keep getting better and better at. There is no one meaningful answer, and no one is going to fully solve it unless you’re one of these enlightened characters. Maybe some of us will get there, but I’m not likely to, given how involved I am in the rat race. The best case is I’m a rat who might be able to look up at the clouds once in a while. I think just being aware you’re a rat in a race is about as far as most of us are going to get. [8] The modern struggle: Lone individuals summoning inhuman willpower, fasting, meditating, and exercising… Up against armies of scientists and statisticians weaponizing abundant food, screens, and medicine into junk food, clickbait news, infinite porn, endless games, and addictive drugs.
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Eric Jorgenson (The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness)
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Some of the monkeys are crowded around the computer watching kitten videos on a pirated wireless connection.
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Rich Horton (The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2009)
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Ramana Maharshi’s message was clear—we must first seek to understand ourselves. Without knowledge of our superior spiritual nature, we will remain tied to the trivial and mundane. In our present bodily consciousness, our situation is like the eagle in the story below. An eagle’s egg was placed amid a brood of chickens. Thinking it to be one of their own, the hens lovingly hatched it along with their own eggs. Consequently, the baby eagle which emerged from it grew up in the company of little chicks. The result was ‘monkey see, monkey do’. The chicks would say, ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck’, and the baby eagle would also cackle along. The chicks would flutter their wings and hop clumsily on the ground. The eagle would do the same, unaware of its God-given ability to fly at altitudes of 10,000 feet above the ground. One day, an adult eagle flew by. The baby eagle looked at it with amazement, and exclaimed, ‘Wow, what a majestic bird! How is it flying at such a glorious height with so much elegance?’ ‘That is an eagle’, replied the chickens. ‘It is the king of birds; naturally, its abilities are far greater. We cannot do what it can do.’ The baby eagle believed the chickens’ sermon, and it continued its pathetic life, fluttering and cackling like them. What a pity! It was born to rule the skies but had become conditioned to flutter on the ground. Like the eagle, we too were fashioned to sparkle in the magnificence of our spirit but became illusioned to wallow in the mediocrity of bodily conceptions. As a poet said: phūla chunane āye the bāge-hayāt meṅ, khāra jhāra meṅ dāmana ulaphā kara raha gaye ‘We had come to pluck flowers from the garden of life, but in the ensuing hustle and bustle of human existence, we ended up entangled in thorns.’ On realizing our soul nature, what becomes our potential? The next section provides the answer. The
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Swami Mukundananda (7 Divine Laws to Awaken Your Best Self)
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The advantages of high rank must be pretty enormous, otherwise evolution would never have installed such foolhardy ambitions. They are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, from frogs and rats to chickens and elephants. High rank generally translates into food for females and mates for males. I say “generally,” because males also compete for food, and females for mates, even though the latter is mostly restricted to species, like ours, in which males help out with child rearing. Everything in evolution boils down to reproductive success, which means that the different orientations of males and females make perfect sense. A male can increase his progeny by mating with many females while keeping rivals away. For the female, such a strategy makes no sense: mating with multiple males generally does not do her any good.
The female goes for quality rather than quantity. Most female animals do not live with their mates, hence all they need to do is pick the most vigorous and healthy sex partner. This way, their offspring will be blessed with good genes. But females of species in which the mates stay around are in a different situation, which makes them favor males who are gentle, protective, and good providers. Females further enhance reproduction by what they eat, especially if they are pregnant or lactating, when caloric intake increases fivefold. Since dominant females can claim the best food, they raise the healthiest offspring. In some species, like rhesus macaques, the hierarchy is so strict that a dominant female will simply stop a subordinate walking by with bulging cheek pouches. These pouches help the monkeys carry food to a safe spot. The dominant will hold the head of the subordinate and open her mouth, essentially picking her pocket. Her intrusion meets with no resistance because for the subordinate it’s either this or get bitten.
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Frans de Waal (Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are)