#nip

I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: "But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primogenial chaos? Isn't affirming God's absolute omnipotence and His absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist? ↗

— Umberto Eco

#chaos #creation #divine-will #omnipotence #theology

Programmers and marketing people know how to get into your subconscious - they spend millions of dollars researching colors, shapes, designs, symbols, that affect your preferences, and they can make you feel warm, trusting, like buying. They can manipulate you. ↗

— Richard Hatch

#buying #colors #designs #dollars #feel

I tried to manipulate and control people, and I harbored resentment. I wanted to be forgiven, but I wouldn't forgive others. ↗

— Lauryn Hill

#forgive #forgiven #harbored #i #i tried

The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and manipulating characters; the novel is such a wonderfully flexible form. ↗

— Penelope Lively

#always #approach #characters #fiction #flexible

There are ways that we can manipulate the corporate media to talk about the issues that we care about. ↗

— Justin Sane

#care #corporate #issues #manipulate #media

The words “I love you” could contain all the bloodthirsty despair of the abattoir, all the hopelessness of the most isolated, frozen gulag, all the lurid sadness of death row. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#manipulation #death

How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the "market" put a price on things - food, clothes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the REAL cost of production? ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#cities #colonialism #exploitation #first-world #human-rights

Bolt actions speak louder than words. ↗

— Craig Roberts

#rifle #snipe #sniper #war #words

Even without much experience in friendships, the lonely girl and the castaway boy filled the time as two friends should. ↗

— M.P. Kozlowsky

#experience

Deep spirit scanning,” Eisfanger says. His voice has a strange resonance to it, like I’m hearing him through a bad phone connection. “Don’t worry, it’s completely safe. Well, mostly.” “Mostly?” “Side effects have been documented,” he admits. “In a very small percentage of cases. Less than two percent.” “What kind of side effects?” Suddenly I’m feeling nauseous. Feels like the ants are crawling around inside me now, which is exactly as disturbing as it sounds. “Memory loss. Synesthesia. And occasionally … vestigial growths.” “So I could forget my own name, start smelling purple everywhere and have an extra nipple sprout from my forehead? ↗

— D.D. Barant

#memory-loss #nipple #side-effects #synesthesia #humor