#elves

In the voyeurism of Reality TV, the viewer's passivity is kept intact, pampered and massaged and force-fed Chicken McNuggets of carefully edited snippets that permit him or her to sit in easy judgment and feel superior at watching familiar strangers make fools of themselves. Reality TV looks in only one direction: down. ↗

— James Wolcott

#chicken #direction #down #easy #edited

If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment. ↗

— Frances Wright

#all things #bring #contented #courage #covetous

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose. ↗

— George Will

#conservatives #define #oppose #terms #themselves

Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow. ↗

— Lawrence Wright

#american public #ancient #celebrities #celebrity #church

Serena and I have done some great career planning, and we're playing really at the peak of our tennis right now. I think tennis has been a sport where people play this insane schedule from 14 years old, so of course at 26, it's over. We've really paced ourselves. ↗

— Venus Williams

#career #course #done #great #great career

I think people deceive themselves about themselves, particularly as they get older. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#deceive #get #i #i think #older

As we divest ourselves of once familiar physical objects - digitize and dematerialize - we approach a 'Star Trek' future in which everything can be accessed from the fourth dimension with a few clicks or terse audibles. ↗

— James Wolcott

#clicks #dimension #divest #everything #familiar

We are ultimately alone in that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves. ↗

— Robert Zemeckis

#ourselves #responsible #ultimately

The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves. ↗

— M. H. Abrams

#century #enlightenment #major #philosophers #secular

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government. ↗

— Aristotle

#different #different means #different ways #forms #government