“All social animals, including people, live under constant pressure from two competing interests: protecting themselves from others and aligning themselves with others. When these two interests are balanced, the result is dynamic social homeostasis.”
Mystery“It is a mystery,' said Detritus.Vimes grinned mirthlessly. It was a mystery. And he didn't like mysteries. Mysteries had a way of getting bigger if you didn't solve them quickly. Mysteries pupped.”
Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay“For what I am suggesting is that concern for the mysterious is at the heart of the humanities, whereas at the heart of the sciences there is a concern with the problematic. That this is a contrast, and not a dichotomy, is seen in the way in which problem-solving has a place in the humanities—though the most significant kind of problem is one that, in Marcel’s language, ‘conceals a mystery’—and in the complementary way in which some scientists, such as Einstein, have spoken of a deepening sense of awe and wonder awakened in them, an awe and wonder in the presence of the universe, that grows through the advance of the sciences, through the growing success in solving problems. But the contrast remains, and since problem-solving can be successful, whereas contemplation of mystery cannot, there cannot be in the humanities any hope for the sort of success the sciences have known. Nor in theology: and especially not in Christian theology whose central mystery is focused in the birth of a child in a stable, and the death of a man on a cross.”
Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology“Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.”
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West“It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.”
Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses“She always has close calls when she solves a mystery!”
Carolyn Keene, Mystery of the Ivory Charm“At the heart of nature's mystery lies another mystery.”
Ransom Riggs, Hollow City“The mystery is solved when you have become the mystery itself.”
Osho, Hsin Hsin Ming, the Book of Nothing: Discourses on the Faith Mind of Sosan“Life is a mystery- mystery of beauty, bliss and divinity. Meditation is the art of unfolding that mystery.”
Amit Ray“All families had started off in some mysterious waay: to repopulate the earth, or by accident, or by force, or out of boredom; and it's all a mystery what each will become.”
Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World