"There's more--there has to be more--to being heroes than simply defeating villains. You have a role, a purpose far greater than yourselves. You have to set examples, lead the way. You represent what we should be, what we dream of becoming, not what we are."

(Ms. Marvel in an Avengers comic written by Chris Claremont)

It also reminds me of a bit ( Read more... )

“As for Charlotte herself, I had never paid much attention to spiders until a few years ago. Once you begin watching spiders, you haven’t time for much else--the world is really loaded with them. I do not find them repulsive or revolting, any more than I find anything in nature repulsive or revolting, and I think it is too bad that children are ( Read more... )

I made this!


( Read more... )

A conversation between a paleontologist and a police special agent ( Read more... )

The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say physics -- greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else. If a molecule is too big, you give it to the chemists. The ( Read more... )

This is one of my favorite parts of Grapes of Wrath, and I keep wanting to quote it and then having trouble finding it, so I'm putting it here for future reference ( Read more... )

"People always think of technology as something having silicon in it. But a pencil is technology. Any language is technology. Technology is a tool we use to accomplish a particular task and when one talks about appropriate technology in developing countries, appropriate may mean anything from fire to solar electricity ( Read more... )

J.R.R. Tolkien, in a 1945 letter to his son about the bombing of Germany by Allied forces, wrote:

We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times ( Read more... )

You've certainly heard a snippet of this before, and you may have heard the whole thing before, but everyone needs to hear this speech at least once.

This is quite possibly the most inspiring video ever. Thank you, Carl Sagan, wherever you are.

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