We are storytelling animals, and cannot bear to acknowledge the ordinariness of our daily lives - Stephen Jay Gould

Duke est desipere in loco [it is pleasant to act foolishly from time to time — a line from Horace].

I had learned that a dexterous, opposable thumb stood among the hallmarks of human success. We had maintained, even exaggerated, this important flexibility of our primate forebears, while most mammals had sacrificed it in specializing their digits. Carnivores run, stab, and scratch. My cat may manipulate me psychologically, but he'll never type or play the piano.

If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.