Our brains actively construct a model of the world, which is our actual experience. Incoming sensory data serves mainly to verify and correct this internal model.

The truth is that many in the clergy don't know what to do when people come to them with something that can't be prayed away!

The heart is a fascinating machine. It beats 3 billion times in a typical human lifetime, consumes so much energy, and does so much work that if you attached a heart to a typical swimming pool – the heart would empty the pool in about a week.

Early on, being told no helped me figure out what I wanted my yes's to be. I learned who I wanted to be from people telling me who I could not be.

Fear can be useful for political leaders and governments as a screen to introduce unpopular legislation. There are those who argue that 9/11 enabled George W. Bush to pass far reaching surveillance laws under the Patriot Act, which would have been unthinkable without the fear produced by the terrorist attacks.

They should be stress-testing their balance sheets and portfolios under a range of negative scenarios, and have sufficient capital and liquidity to withstand scenarios that are far out on the tail of the distribution of possible outcomes. The stress tests should account for potential bubbles in global asset markets.

My mindset changed from thinking that tomorrow I may be freed, to realising that unless I did something myself, nobody would come and rescue me.

Monkeys are superior to men in this: When a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.

I use the word ecstasy, which people think means being very, very happy- but in Ancient Greek it means ecstatic, which means standing outside. It's a moment where you go beyond your ordinary sense of self and feel connected to something great and new.

Boys we just donated to the Salvation Army. They help people that do not have homes or food. Always remember in life there will always be someone that will be in more in need. We could only afford a dime that year, but we gave to help out others!

You have some smart people gaslighting us into telling us this isn't true... and that's now how history works. Those same people, when a Donald Trump figure comes onto the scene- or some other toxic force- are like who's going to save us? But they discouraged you from believing people had the power to do that.

Working for international organisations, I was caught up in the belief that we could fix broken systems simply by introducing the right resources, processes, and intentions. However, I've come to realize that good intentions alone are insufficient. The lack of access to essential services isn't a matter of moral failing but rather a systemic inability to assess risk and generate profit from these assessments.