The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.

You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.

Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity ... Make that elevates 'fatal stupidity' to the status of religion.

The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

In 1054, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope excommunicated each other. That was the end of holiness for both churches.

Journalism is the entertainment business.

Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.