#pro

The moment you have children and a mortgage you want things to work; you're locked into the human project and you want it to flourish. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#flourish #human #into #locked #moment

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different. ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#character #different #discovering #experience #expressing

There are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I've got better as an actor. I've learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it. ↗

— Ian Mckellen

#actor #better #certain #energy #enough

Cynically but accurately put, Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them - take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#cynically #disaster #example #favor #for example

The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#authority #authorized #certain #certain kinds #could

Among the many problems with taking the Bible literally is it reduces the most mysterious and complex of realities to simple - even simplistic - terms. Yes, scripture speaks of fire and damnation and eternal bliss, but the Bible is the product of human hands and hearts, and much of the imagery is allegorical, not meteorological. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#among #bible #bliss #complex #damnation

Given that religious faith is an intrinsic element of human experience, it is best to approach and engage the subject with a sense of history and a critical sensibility. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#best #critical #element #engage #experience

Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#either #four #franklin #good #here

It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation' between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#among #appeal #been #between #christianity

One of the earliest resurrection scenes in the Bible is that of Thomas demanding evidence - he wanted to see, to touch, to prove. Those who question and probe and debate are heirs of the apostles just as much as the most fervent of believers. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#believers #bible #debate #demanding #earliest