"The Tucson Zoo", p. 9
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher (1979)
Context: We are endowed with genes which code out our reaction to beavers and otters, maybe our reaction to each other as well. We are stamped with stereotyped, unalterable patterns of response, ready to be released. And the behavior released in us, by such confrontations, is, essentially, a surprised affection. It is compulsory behavior and we can avoid it only by straining with the full power of our conscious minds, making up conscious excuses all the way. Left to ourselves, mechanistic and autonomic, we hanker for friends.
Source: The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
Of her film Carry on Screaming http://www.allthingshorror.co.uk/#/fenella-fielding/4529104641
[Stacy McGaugh, http://astroweb.case.edu/ssm/mond/boileddown.html, "The MOND Issue"] at astroweb.case.edu. Accessed 2014.
Source: "Attribution theory and research." 1980, p. 489
" My Philanthropic Pledge http://givingpledge.org/pdf/letters/Buffett_Letter.pdf" at the The Giving Pledge (2010)
Context: Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.
My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. Both my children and I won what I call the ovarian lottery. (For starters, the odds against my 1930 birth taking place in the U. S. were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.) My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.
The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.
Original: La musica è una sostanza sublime ad elevate reazioni emozionali da testare accuratamente nel laboratorio del nostro cuore.
Source: prevale.net
1920s
Source: Nationalsozialismus oder Bolschewismus? (National Socialism or Bolshevism), open letter to “My Friends on the Left,” Nationalsozialistische Briefe (National Socialist Letters), (Oct. 15, 1925); Joseph Gobbles, Quoted in The Devil’s Disciples, Anthony Read, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005, p. 142
“There is no right reaction. There is only your reaction.”
Source: Chicken Soup for the Soul
Speaking & Features, My African Dream: Faith Rally Address, COP17
“Each one an antidote to the one that went before. Each one a reaction, an about-face, a rebound.”
About Men
Fear of Flying (1973)
