#matt

When you act like a nice guy, everyone examines your motives with a microscope. When you act like a conscienceless louse, they generally take you at face value. ↗

— Donald Hamilton

#motivational

It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about. ↗

— Criss Jami

#arguments #bigot #bigotry #bigots #certainty

Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen. ↗

— Bill Bryson

#einstein #energy #matter #physics #science

No, you've got it all wrong, John." Reading his emotions, she shook her head. "You're not half the male you could be because of what was done to you. You're twice what anyone else is because you survived. ↗

— J.R. Ward

#jr-ward #lover-mine #xhex #wrong

Some years ago, there was a lovely philosopher of science and journalist in Italy named Giulio Giorello, and he did an interview with me. And I don’t know if he wrote it or not, but the headline in Corriere della Sera when it was published was "Sì, abbiamo un'anima. Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot – "Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots." And I thought, exactly. That’s the view. Yes, we have a soul, but in what sense? In the sense that our brains, unlike the brains even of dogs and cats and chimpanzees and dolphins, our brains have functional structures that give our brains powers that no other brains have - powers of look-ahead, primarily. We can understand our position in the world, we can see the future, we can understand where we came from. We know that we’re here. No buffalo knows it’s a buffalo, but we jolly well know that we’re members of Homo sapiens, and it’s the knowledge that we have and the can-do, our capacity to think ahead and to reflect and to evaluate and to evaluate our evaluations, and evaluate the grounds for our evaluations. It’s this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what’s it made of? It’s made of neurons. It’s made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation. ↗

— Daniel C. Dennett

#matter #mind #robots #soul #truth

It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on. ↗

— Floyd Abrams

#amendment #amendment rights #enough #first #first amendment

My son is healthy and happy, so that's all that matters to me. ↗

— Christina Aguilera

#healthy #matters #me #son

But it was not possible to do this movie, in this matter of time, without a solid rehearsal period. ↗

— Debbie Allen

#movie #period #possible #rehearsal #solid

When all else fails, complicate matters. ↗

— Aaron Allston

#else #fails #matters #when all else fails

It doesn't matter what age you are. You can look sexy and feel great, and that doesn't have to be a gift only for the young. It can be a gift for any age, even the old, whatever that is nowadays. ↗

— Carol Alt

#any #even #feel #gift #great