#on

As far as her mom was concerned, tea fixed everything. Have a cold? Have some tea. Broken bones? There's a tea for that too. Somewhere in her mother's pantry, Laurel suspected, was a box of tea that said, 'In case of Armageddon, steep three to five minutes'. ↗

— Aprilynne Pike

#cold #tea #illusion

When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal. ↗

— Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

#fatal #heart #marquise-de-merteuil #revenge #revenge

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind. ↗

— Edward L. Bernays

#manipulation #mind-control #psychology #business

What is more cheerful, now, in the fall of the year, than an open-wood-fire? Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood? Those are the ghosts of the robins and blue-birds that sang upon the bough when it was in blossom last Spring. In Summer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round. ↗

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich

#happiness #imagery #seasons #twitter

When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do. ↗

— Sam Harris

#atheism #belief #ethics #humanism #religion

But you can’t be a scientist if you’re uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, “Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board.” It’s as though we’re sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks—masters of the universe—and suddenly say, “Oops, somebody discovered something!” No. We’re always at the drawing board. If you’re not at the drawing board, you’re not making discoveries. You’re not a scientist; you’re something else. The public, on the other hand, seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty. ↗

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

#drawing-conclusions #ignorance #science #scientists #science

Sometimes it isn't easy to be sane, smart, and responsible. Sometimes it sucks. Sucks wang. Camel wang. But that doesn't turn wrong into right or stupid into smart. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#responsibility #right-and-wrong #ethics

Stories are the wildest things of all. Stories chase and bite and hunt. ↗

— Patrick Ness

#stories #fiction

There is practically no activity that cannot be enhanced or replaced by knitting, if you really want to get obsessive about it. ↗

— Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

#obsession #obsession

Maybe weakness is a strength of a kind. ↗

— Melissa de la Cruz

#blue-bloods #fiction #martin-kingsley #van-alen-legacy #young-adult