Yes,I'm afraid you're right. Trial and error isn't a bad way to learn how to build an aircraft,but it can be a disastrous way to learn how to build a civilization.

TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

Many of the biggest and most far-reaching investments we make in our lives are investments that have little or nothing to do with money.

I have amazing news for you. Man is not alone on this planet. He is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely.

To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.

....he began to speak to me, not in the jocular way of visitors to the menagerie but rather as one speaks to the wind or to the waves crashing on a beach, uttering that which must be said but which must not be heard by anyone.

The sign stopped me-- or rather, this text stopped me. Words are my profession; I seized these and demanded that they explain themselves, that they cease to be ambiguous.