Involvement with the eight worldly dharmas keeps beings imprisoned in the realms of samsara and renders them susceptible to the hosts of emotions. The eight worldly dharmas are: praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and disgrace, happiness and suffering. The eight worldly dharmas constitute our attachment to hopes and fears: We hope for praise, gain, fame, and happiness while fearing blame, loss, disgrace, and suffering. Entangled in these eight concerns, we give our energy and intelligence to the pursuit of these hopes and the avoidance of these fears. Our way of thinking is completely dominated by these eight concerns, which the world proclaims to be of utmost importance. But Śāntideva reminds us that to achieve true peace of mind, one must "... turn this thinking upside down," becoming indifferent to hope and unmoved by fear.

Libertarian opponents of anarchy are attacking a straw man. Their arguments are usually utilitarian in nature and amount to "but anarchy won’t work" or "we need the (things provided by the) state." But these attacks are confused at best, if not disingenuous. To be an anarchist does not mean you think anarchy will "work" (whatever that means); nor that you predict it will or "can" be achieved. It is possible to be a pessimistic anarchist, after all. To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It’s quite simple, really. It’s an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.Accordingly, anyone who is not an anarchist must maintain either: (a) aggression is justified; or (b) states (in particular, minimal states) do not necessarily employ aggression.

there is no stronger taboo today than talking about race. In many cases, just being accused of “racism” can get you fired. Yet, teachers in America know the races differ in school achievement; policemen know the races differ in crime rates; social workers know the races differ in rates of welfare dependency or getting infected with AIDS. And sports fans know that Blacks excel at boxing, basketball, and running. They all wonder why. Some blame poverty, White racism, and the legacy of slavery. Although many doubt that “White racism” really tells the whole story, few dare share their doubts. When it comes to race, do you really dare to say what you think?

Plunged up to the ears in work, good friend!" thought Oblomov as he watched him depart. "Yes, and blind and deaf and dumb to everything else in the world! Yet by going into society and, at the same time, busying yourself about your affairs you will yet win distinction and promotion. Such is what they call 'a career'! Yet of how little use is a man like that! His intellect, his will, his feelings--what do they avail him? So many luxuries is what they are--nothing more.Such an individual lives out his little span without achieving a single thing worth mentioning; and meanwhile he works in an office from morning till night--yes, from morning till night, poor wretch!

All the luck in the world has to come every year, in every part of every year, or there is not a harvest and then the luck, the bad luck will come and everything we are, all that we can ever be, all the Einsteins and babies and love and hate, all the joy and sadness and sex and wanting and liking and disliking, all the soft summer breezes on cheeks and first snowflakes, all the Van Goghs and Rembrandts and Mozarts and Mahlers and Thomas Jeffersons and Lincolns and Ghandis and Jesus Christs, all the Cleopatras and lovemaking and riches and achievements and progress, all of that, every single damn thing that we are or ever will be is dependent on six inches of topsoil and the fact that the rain comes when it's needed and does not come when it is not needed; everything, every...single...thing comes with that luck.

As she looked in the full-length mirror in her dressing room, she added a few ropes of pearls, pinned a white silk camellia, and draped the Chantilly lace shawl. In that moment, Dana thought of fashion's most enduring icon who created this elegant and alluring style, and the happy personal life that eluded her. Mademoiselle Chanel died in 1971 at the age of eighty-eight while working on her spring collection, but her passion for work did not fill the void of marriage and children. Her success was costly, but clearly the choice of an uncompromising woman determined to achieve greatness on her own. Chanel once said, "I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird." Quote from "A very Good Life.

Sunflowers, Not Facing the Sun (A Poem) I stand tall As gracious as one could be Blooming to my bestAs slender as it touches my being Everyone else is facing the sun Bending towards its unfathomable galore They and I are both undoubtedlyGrown on the benevolence of life’s essence The brighter side mercilessly feeding desires unboundBy daunting the “courage to know” with each spin Though, I am not able to face the sun the way they do Yet, I learn from the knowledge bred within me Beyond achievement markers, but an adverse ability An opportunity to exercise my special selfFrom the cherubic attire of my blessed soul To the unfathomable mystery the drape of this world hides That I, by not facing the sun Hunt the gems in the milieu of the human existence

“The guillotine is the ultimate expression of Law, and its name is vengeance; it is not neutral, nor does it allow us to remain neutral. All social questions achieve their finality around that blade. The scaffold is an image. It is not merely a framework, a machine, a lifeless mechanism of wood, iron, and rope. It is as though it were a being having its own dark purpose, as though the framework saw, the machine listened, and the mechanism understood; as though that arrangement of wood and iron and rope expressed a will. In the hideous picture which its presence evokes it seems to be most terribly a part of what it does. It is the executioner's accomplice; it consumes, devouring flesh and drinking blood. It is a kind of monster created by the judge and the craftsman; a spectre seeming to live an awful life born of the death it deals.”

There is no remedy against this reversal of the natural order. Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Language, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tangled web of human experience. All human progress in thought and experience refines and strengthens this net. No longer can man confront reality immediately; he cannot see it, as it were, face to face. Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man's symbolic activity advances. Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself.He has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms, in artistic images, in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of this artificial medium. His situation is the same in the theoretical as in the practical sphere. Even here man does not live in a world of hard facts, or according to his immediate needs and desires. He lives rather in the midst of imaginary emotions, in hopes and fears, in illusions and disillusions, in his fantasies and dreams. 'What disturbs and alarms man,' said Epictetus, 'are not the things, but his opinions and fantasies about the things.

Tom King, the chief operating officer of U.S. Soccer, said that the federation invested $4.4 million on the women's team in 1999 and lost $2.7 million. The federation receives about $3 million from FIFA, soccer's world governing body, for qualifying for the men's World Cup, and $700,000 to $1 million per game, American officials said. The federation receives no money from FIFA for qualifying for the Women's World Cup. The men's team also receives guarantees from other countries when it travels of up to $140,000, King said, compared with zero for the women.'I don't see the WNBA players asking for the same salaries as the NBA players,' Contiguglia said.In the case of soccer, however, the women are the NBA.It is the women's team that is more popular and higher achieving. And to suggest the men's team is a cash cow is incorrect. The men's team didn't pay for itself either in 1999, King said, losing $700,000 on a budget of $5.9 million. An argument could be made that the American women deserve more money than the men, not just equal pay. They have won two world championships and an Olympic gold medal, while the men have won nothing. The biggest men's home crowds often come at matches where the ethnic population is cheering for the other team.