Morris Chang Quotes

That was the way it was in New Orleans, and in every old haunted city across the world. Ghosts vanished, and new ghosts arrived to take their place. Things changed. Things stayed the same.

We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.” And facing death changes that? "Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials.

Here lies Morris, a good man and friend. He enjoyed the finer points of civilized life but never shied away from a hearty adventure or hard work. He died a free man, which is more than most people can say, if we are going to be honest about it. Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven't the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren't worth a goddamned thing, you will see what I mean.

Lasting change cannot occur without transformation of the heart.

I could probably write a book on the complexities of our relationship, on my constantly shifting emotions, my ever-changing mind, but let's just say that nothing is ever as black and white as it seems, that love is not only blind but pathetic too. It can make us into victims and fools, reduce us to the kind of people who infuriate us on soap operas, the kind you want to scream at for allowing the creep or bitch to walk all over them.

Adventure should be part of everyone's life. It is the whole difference between being fully alive and just existing.

If I had a brontosaurus, I would name him Horace or Morris. But if suddenly one day he had A lot of little brontosauri- I would change his name to Laurie.

October O love, turn from the changing sea and gaze, Down these grey slopes, upon the year grown old, A-dying 'mid the autumn-scented haze That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold, Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead, Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead. Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet, Since still we live today, forgetting June, Forgetting May, deeming October sweet? - - Oh, hearken! hearken! through the afternoon The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune! Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath, To satiate of life, to strive with death. And we too -will it not be soft and kind, That rest from life, from patience, and from pain, That rest from bliss we know not when we find, That rest from love which ne'er the end can gain? - Hark! how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane! Look up, love! -Ah! cling close, and never move! How can I have enough of life and love?

Changes in the heavens wrought changes on the earth.

They (the French) have taken genius instead of reason for their guide, adopted experiment instead of experience, and wander in the dark because they prefer lightning to light.

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

His eyes were more sunken than I remembered them, and his cheekbones more pronounced. This gave him a harsher, older look - until he smiled, of course, and the sagging cheeks gathered up like curtains.

The late John Gardner once said that there are only two plots in all of literature. You go on a journey or a stranger comes to town. Since women, for many years, were denied the journey, they were left with only one plot in their lives -- to await the stranger. Indeed, there is essentially no picaresque tradition among women novelists. While the latter part of the twentieth century has seen a change of tendency, women's literature from Austen to Woolf is by and large a literature about waiting, usually for love.

Times change and people change and you can never go back to the way things were and find them to be the same - they won't be.

As is perhaps obvious, Morris Zapp had no great esteem for his fellow-labourers in the vineyards of literature. They seemed to him vague, fickle, irresponsible creatures, who wallowed in relativism like hippopotami in mud, with their nostrils barely protruding into the air of common-sense. They happily tolerated the existence of opinions contrary to their own — they even, for God’s sake, sometimes changed their minds. Their pathetic attempts at profundity were qualified out of existence and largely interrogative in mode. They liked to begin a paper with some formula like, ‘I want to raise some questions about so-and-so’, and seemed to think they had done their intellectual duty by merely raising them. This manoeuvre drove Morris Zapp insane. Any damn fool, he maintained, could think of questions; it was answers that separated the men from the boys.

Dwelling in the web of regret doesn't change the past. However, any amount of gratitude can change the present of how you view the circumstances that you are in.

I’ve heard some women say having a baby changes you. Not having one can change you, too.

Times change and people change, and you can never go back to the way things were and find them to be the same - they won't be.

I can't make flowery speeches,” Sir Kai began, “and I wouldn't even if I could. I won't whimper at your feet like these callow puppies that call themselves knights these days, and I don't write poetry or play the damned rebec. I don't intend to change my manners or my way of life, but if you'll have me, Connoire, I'd be obliged if you'd marry me.” The incredulous silence that struck the watching crowd was so profound that Piers could hear the peep of a chickadee in the distant forest. Lady Connoire's expression did not change. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I don't like flowery speeches, and if you ever make one to me, I'll just laugh at you. I despise simpering poems, I hate the squealing of a rebec, and we'll see whether you'll change your manners or not. I'll marry you.

I had this guy’s file pulled this morning, along with the rest of your neighbors. His name is Desperado.” Pause. A few seconds passed. He was waiting for my reaction. “Did you say Desperado?” I couldn’t stop the snort of laughter that bubbled to the surface. “Yeah,” the Director confirmed. “He changed his name when he turned eighteen. It was Melvin.” I was still laughing. “’Cause Desperado is so much better than Melvin.

It is true, as the champions of the extremists say, that there can be no life without change, and that to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life. It is no less true, however, that change may mean death and not life, and retrogression instead of development.

leaping, and praising God. (Acts 3:6–8) This day was different because of the gift of healings imparted by the Holy Spirit poured out upon Peter and his fellow followers of Jesus. Has the HOLY SPIRIT gone out of BUSINESS, or is He on extended VACATION? Some people question whether the Holy Spirit still gives this gift. So I ask, has the

To fake a photograph, all you have to do is change the caption. To fake a painting, change the attribution.” —Errol Morris

there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

Conservatives, he said, “are taught to believe that change means destruction. They are wrong.… Life means change; where there is no change, death comes.

Love the game enough to change it!

Love, who changest all, change me nevermore! "Love, who changest all, change my sorrow sore!

But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as "too late" in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

That was the end of his driving.. That was the end of his walking free.. That was the end of his privacy.. And that was the end of his secret.

helps me. He helps me know what to say when I’m speechless. He helps me know when to speak and when to keep my mouth closed.

Ensconced, he (Roosevelt) lacked some of the neuroses of progressives-economic envy and race hatred especially.His radicalism was a matter of energy rather than urgency.

Self-change can only come after self-understanding.

Times change and people change - and you can never go back to the way things were and find them to be the same - they won't be.

Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning what was done. It means letting go of the anger you’re holding about it. Anger can’t change the past, but it sure as hell can hurt you in the present.

And facing death changes all that? “Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently. He

I wrote articles about rich athletes who, for the most part, could not care less about people like me. .. My days were full, yet I remained, much of the time, unsatisfied. What happened to me?

A transformational lifestyle is when a person can change the pain in their life into power, messiness into meaningfulness, complacency into completion, victimization into victory and tragedy into triumph.

Bobby's back yard hadn't changed since she was knee-high. It was still littered with bicycle bits and pieces of engine that he was always tinkering with. It looked like the same relentless weeds bravely struggled through the cracked flagstones; the same array of socks and T-shirts flapped on the washing line, though somewhat bigger, and even the same wasps droned around the dustbin. That's how it seemed – a place immune to time.

Even with our immense wealth and technology, we continue to abuse the planet and each other for the sake of easy packaging and a cheap, disposable lifestyle. Unchecked population continues to outstrip the availability of housing, water, food, education, and jobs, while we squabble over politics, religion, gender, race, and nationality. Factor in the unrelenting advance of climate change, ocean acidification, the sixth extinction, the nuclear waste time bomb, ground water depletion, the social cancer of wealth inequality, dystopian surveillance, and the unstoppable US deficit growth and that’s a really bad news day for most of the planet during any age.

Desmond Morris informs me that John Lennon’s magnificent song is sometimes performed in America with the phrase ‘and no religion too’ expurgated. One version even has the effrontery to change it to ‘and one religion too’.

If you want to trick someone with a photograph, there are lots of easy ways to do it. You don’t need Photoshop. You don’t need sophisticated digital photo-manipulation. You don’t need a computer. All you need to do is change the caption.

These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:25–26).

[Joseph Bucklin Bishop said] "...The peculiarity about him is that he has what is essentially a boy's mind. What he thinks he says at once, says aloud. It is his distinguishing characteristic, and I don't know as he will ever outgrow it. But with it he has great qualities which make him an invaluable public servant--inflexible honesty, absolute fearlessness, and devotion to good government which amounts to religion. We must let him work his way, for nobody can induce him to change it.

Such summonses were a common occurrence in the life of Dr. O’Shea, who seemed to spend a fantastic amount of time on the road—compared, anyway, to American doctors, who in Morris’s experience would only visit you at home if you were actually dead.

All this was only, in my father's estimation, a means; the end was the Earthly Paradise, the translation of William Morris's 'News from Nowhere' into 'News from Somewhere.' Then Whitman's sense of abounding joy in his own and all creation's sensuality would sweep away the paltry backwaters of bourgeois morality; the horrors of industrial ugliness which Ruskin so eloquently denounced would dissolve, and die forgotten as a dream (phrases from hymns still washed about in my father's mind) as slums were transformed into garden cities, and the belching smoke of hateful furnaces into the cool elegance of electric power. As for the ferocious ravings of my namesake, Carlyle, about the pettifogging nature of modern industrial man's pursuits and expectations -- all that would be corrected as he was induced to spend ever more of his increasing leisure in cultural and craft activities; in the enjoyment of music, literature and art. It was pefectly true -- a point that Will Straughan was liable to bring up at the Saturday evening gatherings -- that on the present form the new citizenry might be expected to have a marked preference for dog-racing over chamber music or readings from 'Paradise Lost,' but, my father would loftily point out, education would change all that. Education was, in fact, the lynchpin of the whole operation; the means whereby the Old Adam of the Saturday night booze-up, and fondness for Marie Lloyd in preference to Beatrice Webb, would be cast off, and the New Man be born as potential fodder for third Programmes yet to come.

I know I cannot do this. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough. No more playing music at half-empty night clubs. No more writing songs in my apartment, songs that no one would hear.

The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard: The fold stands empty in the drownèd field, And crows are fatted with the murrion flock; The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud; And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread, are undistinguishable: The human mortals want their winter here; No night is now with hymn or carol blest:— Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound: And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; And on old Hyem's thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the maz'd world, By their increase, now knows not which is which: And this same progeny of evils comes

Why is it that when Robert Redford-cum-Denys Finch Hatton flies away in the golden glow out of Africa, he is pursuing his destiny? And when I walk away I'm just a chick who's scared of commitment and on the run, who's weird for ignoring Glamour magazine's predictions of my eggs drying up? Learning is an underrated form of liberation.

The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate.. headed for New York City, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered, was not all that interested. I wandered around my early twenties, paying rent and reading classifieds and wondering why the lights were not turning green for me.

Tam was saying: ‘AN EVIL THOUGHT OR ACTION WOULD HAVE TO BE COMMITTED AT – OR JUST PRIOR TO THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION. THIS SEEMS MOST UNLIKELY BETWEEN TRUE LOVERS. THEREFORE THE CHANCE OF THIS MUTATION OCCURING IS ABOUT ONE IN A MILLION.’ The screen darkened. Tam would say no more. The Mind never surmised or deliberated; that was for man creatures to do. She simply stated fact. ‘Well...’ Grom turned to face his mystified Council. ‘Has anyone got any ideas?’ There was an expectant silence as everyone looked at everyone else. Griff seemed about to speak, and then changed his mind. Then Tameron (the seer) stepped forward. Her dark eyes were wide with horror at the awful revelation which had just come to her. Her step faltered as she moved towards the king, and he reached with his hands to steady her. She did not want to tell what she knew, but was compelled to speak the truth. This was something the Fae had to know. ‘My Lord...’ Her voice was barely more than a whisper, and she trembled uncontrollably as she struggled to find courage to betray one of her own. ‘My Lord... This creature is the seed of Griff.’ There was a stunned silence.

Why is it so hard to think about dying? “Because,” Morrie continued, “most of us all walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.” And facing death changes all that? “Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.

December 8, 1986 Hello John: Thanks for the good letter. I don’t think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don’t get it right. They call it “9 to 5.” It’s never 9 to 5, there’s no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don’t take lunch. Then there’s OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there’s another sucker to take your place. You know my old saying, “Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.” And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don’t want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does. As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can’t believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did? Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: “Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?” They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds. Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned: “I put in 35 years…” “It ain’t right…” “I don’t know what to do…” They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn’t they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait? I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I’m here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I’ve found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system. I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: “I’ll never be free!” One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life. So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I’m gone) how I’ve come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die. To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself. Your boy, Hank

Missouria took in Mr. Morris’s information and this system of demarcating lives. Maps and lines had defined her entire life. They were drawn throughout history, straightened, elongated, bent up and down by people who met in town halls and state capitals and now in the federal government. She had spent too many years confined inside those lines, told where to go, when, and for how long. She had come here to change her life, to live as a professional, and to put down new roots.

Why is it so hard to think about dying? “Because,” Morrie continued, “most of us all walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.” And facing death changes all that? “Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently. He sighed. “Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.

It was a remarkable realization to Eby, that we are what we're taught. That was why Morris women were what they were. It was because they knew no different. Eby had forged new ground, and it made her feel powerful and useful. It fed her lifelong need to make things right. There was a certain hubris to it, though. And she would soon learn her lesson. Lisette was changing because she wanted to. When it came to Eby's family, no amount of love and no amount of money would change people who didn't want to change.

But everyone knows someone who has died, I said. Why is it so hard to think about dying? 'Because,' Morrie continued, 'most of us walk around as if we're sleepwalking. We really don't experience the world fully, because we're half asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.' And facing death changes all that? 'Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.' He sighed. 'Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.

All this comes under the heading of what the journalist Thomas L. Friedman has called “the really scary stuff we already know.” Much worse is what he calls “the even scarier stuff we don’t know.” The problem, Friedman explains, is that what we face is not global warming but “global weirding.” Climate change is nonlinear: everything is connected to everything else, feeding back in ways too bewilderingly complex to model. There will be tipping points when the environment shifts abruptly and irreversibly, but we don’t know where they are or what will happen when we reach them.

It is the punisher’s mind-set where everything must be changed. The difficulty of this is explored in the superb book The Punisher’s Brain: The Evolution of Judge and Jury (2014) by Morris Hoffman, a practicing judge and legal scholar.31 He reviews the reasons for punishment: As we see from game theory studies, because punishment fosters cooperation. Because it is in the fabric of the evolution of sociality. And most important, because it can feel good to punish, to be part of a righteous and self-righteous crowd at a public hanging, knowing that justice is being served. This is a deep, atavistic pleasure. Put people in brain scanners, give them scenarios of norm violations. Decision making about culpability for the violation correlates with activity in the cognitive dlPFC. But decision making about appropriate punishment activates the emotional vmPFC, along with the amygdala and insula; the more activation, the more punishment.32 The decision to punish, the passionate motivation to do so, is a frothy limbic state. As are the consequences of punishing—when subjects punish someone for making a lousy offer in an economic game, there’s activation of dopaminergic reward systems. Punishment that feels just feels good.

Growing up where she did, Beatrix had developed a romantic and adventurous nature, and she had no outlet for it any more. The happiest times I can remember spending with them were when we drove out - twice, I think - to the Long Mynd for a picnic. Roger had long since traded in his motorbike and scraped together enough money to buy a second-hand Morris Minor. Somehow we all squeezed into this (I seem to recall sitting in the front passenger seat, Beatrix sitting behind me with the baby on her lap) and drove out for the afternoon to those wonderful Shropshire hills. I wonder if you have ever walked on them yourself, Imogen. They are part of your story, you know. So many things have changed, changed beyond recognition, in the almost sixty years since the time I'm now recalling, but the Long Mynd is not one of them. In the last few months I have been too ill to walk there, but I did manage to visit in the last spring, to offer what I already sensed would be my final farewells. Places like this are important to me - to all of us - because they exist outside the normal timespan. You can stand on the backbone of the Long Mynd and not know if you are in the 1940s, the 2000s, the tenth or eleventh century... It is all immaterial, all irrelevant. The gorse and the purple heather are unchanging, and so are the sheeptracks which cut through them and criss-cross them, the twisted rocky outcrops which surprise you at every turn, the warm browns of the bracken, the distant greys of the conifer plantations, tucked far away down in secretive valleys. You cannot put a price on the sense of freedom and timelessness that is granted to you there, as you stand on the high ridge beneath a flawless sky of April blue and look across at the tame beauties of the English countryside, to the east, and to the west a hint of something stranger - the beginnings of the Welsh mountains

John's was not a glum, negative, insulting attack on society but a sharp-witted, entertaining, cock-a-snook approach that encouraged young people to express themselves as individuals and to reject the stifling rigidity of a lot of the older social traditions. Thanks to John, to give one example, regional dialects were no longer looked upon as a hindrance. He made no attempt to tone down his Liverpool accent (indeed, he exaggerated it) and this encouraged others to follow suit. Previously, without cut-glass Oxford English, it was impossible for anyone to make progress in the media. John changed all that, and a great deal more as well. (Desmond Morris)

These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer’s spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By pavèd fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beachèd margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge have sucked up from the sea Contagious fogs, which, falling in the land, Hath every pelting river made so proud That they have overborne their continents. The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain, The plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard. The fold stands empty in the drownèd field, And crows are fatted with the murrain flock. The nine-men’s-morris is filled up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread, are undistinguishable. The human mortals want their winter here. No night is now with hymn or carol blessed. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound. And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazèd world By their increase now knows not which is which. And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original.

Yea, and thy deeds shall thou know, and great shall thy gladness be; As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see, And know that thou too wert a God to abide through the hurry and haste; A God in the golden hall, a God on the rain-swept waste, A God in the battle triumphant, a God on the heap of the slain: And thine hope shall arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quickened again: And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill; Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath holpen to fill; By the side of the sons of Odin shalt thou fashion a tale to be told In the hall of the happy Baldur: nor there shall the tale grow old Of the days before the changing, e'en those that over us pass. So harden thine heart, O brother, and set thy brow as the brass!

Then the moon went out. We all looked upward as a dark shape covered it, descending, rushing toward us. Morris shrieked shrilly as it fell, changing shape as if dark veils swam about it. And then the moon shone again, and the piece of midnight sky which had fallen came to earth beside Jack, and I saw that vision-twisting transformation of which Graymalk had spoken - here, there, a twist, a swirl, a dark bending - and the Count stood at Jack's side, smiling a totally evil smile. He laid his left hand - the dark ring visible upon it- upon Jack's right shoulder. "I stand with him," he said, "to close you out." Vicar Roberts stared at him and locked his lips. "I would think one of your sort more inclined to our view in this matter," the vicar stated. "I like the world just the way it is," said the Count.

When we have a job change or we’re buying a new home or we have an important decision to make concerning our marriage or family or future, we want a specific word from the Lord. And we need one from Him too. And He will give us one. But my concern is that we sometimes try to hear a specific word from God without first developing the habit of hearing a general word from God every day. That’s an important part of the process of learning to value God’s voice. If we just check in with God every six months or so whenever a big decision comes up, then we will miss out not only on knowing God’s general will but also on a close, everyday friendship with God. So we must learn to value His voice, His general voice, on a regular basis if we want to hear His specific voice from time to time. If we’re not in the habit of meeting with Him and hearing from Him on a regular basis, then it will be much more difficult to hear a specific word from God.

Roosevelt must have hogged the conversation as usual, for Parker was in an ill humor by the end of the evening. Walking home with Bishop, he suddenly said, “I wish you would stop him talking so much in the newspapers. He talks, talks, talks all the time. Scarcely a day passes that there is not something from him in the papers … and the public is getting tired of it. It injures our work.” Bishop laughed. “Stop Roosevelt talking! Why, you would kill him. He has to talk. The peculiarity about him is that he has what is essentially a boy’s mind. What he thinks he says at once, says aloud. It is his distinguishing characteristic, and I don’t know as he will ever outgrow it. But with it he has great qualities which make him an invaluable public servant—inflexible honesty, absolute fearlessness, and devotion to good government which amounts to religion. We must let him work his way, for nobody can induce him to change it.” Parker received this speech in cold silence.35

assessing Ronald Reagan. There are so many basic questions that even his friends cannot quite figure out, such as (to start with the most basic one): Was he smart? From the brilliant-versus-clueless question flows even more complex ones. Was he a visionary who clung to a few verities, or an amiable dunce who floated obliviously above facts and nuances? Was he a stubborn ideological coot or a clever negotiator able to change course when dealing with Congress and the Soviets and movie moguls? Was he a historic figure who stemmed the tide of government expansion and stared down Moscow, or an out-of-touch actor who bloated the deficit and deserves less credit than Gorbachev for ending the cold war? The most solidly reported biography of Reagan so far—indeed, the only solidly reported biography—is by the scrupulously fair newspaperman Lou Cannon, who has covered him since the 1960s. Edmund Morris, who with great literary flair captured the life of Theodore Roosevelt, was given the access to write an authorized biography, but he became flummoxed by the topic; he took an erratic swing by producing Dutch, a semifictionalized ruminative bio-memoir, thus fouling off his precious opportunity. Both Garry Wills in his elegant 1987 sociobiography, Reagan’s America, and Dinesh D’Souza in his 1997 delicate drypoint, Ronald Reagan, do a good job of analyzing why he was able to make such a successful connection with the American people.

There was a mild, damp wind blowing. It was weather I was quite familiar with; and a sudden feeling and presentiment ran through me: that New Year’s Day was not a day that differed from any other, not the first day of a new life when I could remake the acquaintance of Gilberte with the die still uncast, as though on the very first day of Creation when no past yet existed, as though the sorrows she had sometimes caused me had been wiped out, and with them all the future ones they might portend, as though I lived in a new world in which nothing remained of the old except one thing: my wish that Gilberte would love me. I realized that, since my heart yearned in this way for the redesign of a universe which had not satisfied it, this meant that my heart had not changed; and I could see there was no reason why Gilberte’s should have changed either. I sensed that, though it was a new friendship for me, it would not be a new friendship for her, just as no years are ever separated from each other by a frontier, and that though[…]“it was a new friendship for me, it would not be a new friendship for her, just as no years are ever separated from each other by a frontier, and that though we may put different names to them, they remain beyond the reach of our yearnings, unaware of these and unaffected by them. Though I might dedicate this year to Gilberte, though I might try to imprint upon New Year’s Day the special notion I had made up for it, as a religion is superimposed on the blind workings of nature, it was in vain: I was aware that this day did not know it was called New Year’s Day, and that it was coming to an end in the twilight in a way that was not unknown to me. What I recognized, what I sensed “in that mild wind blowing about the Morris column with its posters, was the reappearance of former times, with the never-ending unchangingness of their substance, their familiar dampness, their ignorant fluidity.

to abolish war, it is not necessary to attempt the impossible task of changing man’s nature so that he can’t choose to initiate force against others—it is merely necessary to abolish governments.

The attempt to make legislation flexible enough to fit individual cases also nullifies the universality of the law. A judge who has the option of giving a sentence which may be anywhere from two to ten years has nothing to guide him in his choice except his own private beliefs. Some judges are habitually lenient, and some habitually harsh, so that the fate of the accused usually depends as much on the personality and mood of his judge as on the actual circumstances of the case. Changing from a system of punishment in the form of prison sentences to a system of justice in the form of reparations payments to the victims would do nothing to solve this problem as long as the legal-judicial mechanism remained a function of government rather than of the free market. Free-market arbiters are guided in their choices by the desires of consumers, with profit and loss as a built-in “correction mechanism.” But government judges have no signals to guide their decisions. Even if they wanted to please their “customers,” they would have no signals to tell them how to do so. A government judge, faced with a flexible penalty, can have nothing to guide him but his own opinions and whims.

Opinions, even majority opinions, don’t create truth—truth is true, regardless of what anyone thinks about it. Fifty million Frenchmen can be wrong, and frequently are. So, if the majority of voters are completely wrong in their support of a candidate, or the majority of legislators are terribly mistaken in their judgment of a law, their majority opinion doesn’t change the fact that they are wrong. It is sheer superstition to believe that if enough people (or, perhaps, enough learned and influential people) think a thing is so, this will make it so. A law may be passed by a majority of legislators who were elected by a majority of citizens, and yet it may very well be immoral and destructive despite the majority’s collective delusions to the contrary. And no group of people, even if they are in the majority, have the right to force an immoral and destructive law on anyone.

If a laissez-faire society is attainable, why haven’t men established one before now? The answer is that essentially good people have prevented it by their unwitting support of slavery. The majority of people throughout history have accepted the idea that it was both proper and necessary for some men to coercively rule over others. Most of these people weren’t basically bad, and probably only a few of them have had a lust for power. But they have held a terribly wrong idea which has caused them to support a social system that institutionalizes slavery and violence. It is this idea—that it is proper and/or necessary for some men to coercively govern others, which is the idea of government—that has prevented the establishment of a laissez-faire society and which has been responsible for incalculable human suffering and waste in the form of political and religious persecutions, taxes, regulations, conscription, slavery, wars, despotisms, etc., etc. To achieve a laissez-faire society, it is only necessary to enable enough people to change this idea in their minds. All that is required for the defeat of evil is that good men stop their unwitting support of it. There is a great and growing conflict in our world between those who want to be free and those who want to rule (together with those who want to be ruled). This great conflict has been taking shape for centuries, but the vast majority of people have never understood what it was all about because they haven’t seen that the issue was freedom versus slavery. Because they have believed that men must be governed, most people have been, however, unwittingly and apathetically on the side of slavery. Until recently, no more than a tiny handful of individualsts have realized what freedom means and how necessary it is for man’s happiness and well-being. The great conflict between freedom and slavery, though it has taken many forms, finds its main expression in a conflict between two powerful and opposing human institutions—the free market and government. The establishment of a laissez-faire society depends on the outcome of the war between these two institutions—a war whose most crucial battles are fought on the field of ideas.

In a governmental society, the reason some men rule over others is that the vast majority of opinion-molders in that society consider it proper or even necessary for men to be ruled by force. In order to get rid of government it is only necessary to change the prevailing idea that men must or should be kept in some degree of slavery by their rulers. In a society dominated by the idea that no man has a right to govern anyone else, government would be impossible—no would-be ruler could muster enough gunmen to inforce his will.

So long as the majority of men believe that government is right and/or necessary, they will have a government. If their government is destroyed before they understand the desirability and practicality of freedom, they will rush to set up a new one, because they believe they must be governed in order to have a civilized world. Until we change this idea, we can never have a free society.

...and Morris Lesmore became stooped and crinkly. But the books never changed. Their stories stayed the same. Now his old friends took care of him the way he once cared for them...

It will be shown — and this constitutes the major conclusion of this study — that a consensus supporting appeasement emerged in the weeklies in the course of 1935 and that it remained virtually intact until September 1938. The consensus encompassed the supporters of the National Government as well last the bulk of the Liberal and left-wing weeklies ostensibly committed to 'collective Security' and 'resistance to Fascism'. In the course of 1938 this consensus was irreparably undermined; the shock and humiliation of Munich left a permanent mark. The occupation of Prague in March 1939 rendered the continuance of appeasement objectionable to most Britons. It compelled the Government to adopt a posture of resistance to aggression. However, it will be seen that in the weeklies March 1939 did not witness an abrupt and revolutionary change of heart; rather, it marked a stage in the gradual shift, ending in September 1939, from appeasement to resistance.

The United States is completely powerless to effect a change in the rejectionist position of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian majority that supports them, and it is only marginally influential with regard to Israeli policies on the basic issues.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” ~ William Morris

In addition, there were eight women. What had been the ideal gender balance when they had launched was now obviously skewed. The women had the upper hand. Would this change the character of the journey? Ewa didn’t know.

When humankind sets foot on a planet, they inevitably change it.

you will suffer something else: a psychic trauma, a personality change whose dimensions still elude full explanation. You will be emotionally fragile – as prone to tears as to rage. You will be subject to depressions, sudden, black and sometimes suicidal. At one moment you will be as dependent as a child, seeking reassurance after a nightmare. The next you will be angry and frustrated by your own impotence. Your short-term memory may be defective. Your tolerance of emotional stress will be greatly reduced. You will be strongly advised by the counsellors who will be working with

The British desire to appease Germany before 1933 is intelligible in the light of the reign of liberalism; appeasement, as an enlightened policy of justice for all, including Germany, was a child of that outlook. For over a decade it was promoted (ineffectually, because of French recalcitrance) by men as diverse as J.M. Keynes and Ramsay MacDonald, Gilbert Murray and Stanley Baldwin. But appeasement did not end with the ascent of Hitler to the chancellorship. In this respect, 1933–1935 marked a watershed; appeasement, gradually but perceptibly, changed from a policy based on 'morality' and on a quest for 'justice' to one compelled by fear and expediency. Thus appeasement changed its meaning.

Literally thousands of articles on Germany appeared in the weeklies in the course of the thirties. No more than 25 (!) specifically set out to define, explain or analyse Nazi ideology. Most of the editors apparently regarded that ideology as ridiculous, irrelevant or simply intellectually uninteresting. Even those, like Gavin, who displayed an awareness of the connection in German politics between the idea and the action failed to print analyses of Nazi ideology. Most, simply, viewed polite and policies as the product of material forces, interests and ambitions struggling within a context of a changing set of physical circumstances.

If to modern Westerners the idea of changing sex has seemed, at least until recently, monstrous, absurd, or ungodly, among simpler peoples it has more often been regarded as a process of divine omniscience, a mark of specialness. To stand astride the sexes was not a disgrace but a privilege, and it went often with supernatural powers and priestly functions.

When you change the way you react to things, the things you react to change, and the energy that helps you manifest your future alters so that it’s poised to work to your advantage, for the highest good of all.

When amazing opportunities presents itself, seize it and watch it change your life dramatically.

Why do people always complain about their circumstances, like they have no control over them? Everyone has the ability to change their lives.

After the funeral, my life changed. I felt as if time were suddenly precious, water going down an open drain, and I could not move quickly enough.

conversation, anyway. You don’t play any sports. What do you know about it?” “According to your definition, football must be the only sport,” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “I play volleyball. But how would you know? You’ve never come to watch me play.” “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I forgot you play volleyball.” Pete lowered his head and ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “Anyway, that doesn’t change the complexion of things. I still think that Jabber owes it to Dad’s memory to be a football player.” “And I don’t think he does,” said Karen. “You may not understand Pete’s feelings, Karen,” said Mrs. Morris. “You’re seventeen years old, and you’re a smart girl, I’m not taking that away from you. In fact, I’m very proud of you. But at seventeen you’ve still got a lot

Underlying the work we are doing to build connection with our neurodivergent kids is the intent of creating change. We want our kids to be more empowered, independent, and contented in their lives. We want our houses to be calmer and to let down our guard about our children’s success at school. We want harmonious relationships that don’t rely on power struggles and strategic maneuvering to get things done.

These are changes that occur within the system that already exists, and we already know this system isn’t working. We need a new system.

But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

When I find a pair of pants I like, I buy a lot of them. Really a lot. Perhaps there’s something genetic here; I collect pants like my Uncle Morris collected meat. I do this because pants wear out. Is this part of a plot by the clothing manufacturers to keep us buying more? Some people think so. In my Sound and Fury file, I find an old (September 20, 1982) Ann Landers column about pantyhose manufacturers who deliberately create products that self-destruct after a week instead of a year because “the no-run nylons, which they know how to make, would put a serious crimp in their sales.” Ann concludes that she and her readers are “at the mercy of a conspiracy of self-interest.” One wonders whose self-interest Ann has in mind. Surely it’s not the manufacturers’. If there were a cost-justified way to do it, any self-interested manufacturer would switch from selling one-week nylons at $1 to selling one-year nylons at $52. That pleases the customers (whose pantyhose budget doesn’t change but who make fewer trips to the store), maintains the manufacturer’s revenue, and—because he produces about 98 percent fewer nylons—cuts his costs considerably.

The policy changed only in early April, as reflected in the deliberations of the Arab affairs advisers in the Coastal Plain. At their meeting of 31 March, the advisers acted to protect Arab property and deferred a decision about expelling Arabs or disallowing Arabs to cultivate their fields. 123 But a week later the advisers ruled that "the intention [policy] was, generally, to evict the Arabs living in the brigade's area." 124

Obama’s failure to act has been blamed on his inexperience, his unfamiliarity with finance and business, and a personal tendency to avoid conflict (or, to be blunt, on his being a coward). Some, including my colleague Charles Morris, also feel that the political system is now so gridlocked and dysfunctional that transformative policy changes are simply no longer feasible by anyone, so that Obama really couldn’t have done anything even if he had tried. If so, then we’re really screwed. But if anyone had a shot, it was Barack Obama in 2009, and he didn’t try. Admittedly, it would have taken real personal courage, and it would have been a hard fight—Wall Street would not have just rolled over. The logic and incentive structures of America’s political duopoly are such that in taking the path of least resistance, Obama was surely acting in his, and his party’s, rational self-interest. But whatever Obama’s personal motivations, America (and indeed the whole world) will pay dearly for his failure for a long time.

Morris wished for people to see their purchases as investments and buy items sparingly. He would have preferred for someone to spend £1,000 on an intricate, hand-made dining set that would last for decades and grow to become a family heirloom, than for each generation to buy its own cheap alternative, just to be thrown away when fashions changed.

We all have free will, and, as I have repeatedly stressed, our choices do change the world. It is just that most of our choices do not change the world very much.

Great men (and women) clearly like thinking that by force of will alone they are changing the world, but they are mistaken.