Coming Home by Edith Wharton http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24349

White Fang by Jack London http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/23976

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/23979

Spirits in Bondage by C.S. Lewis http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/23975

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/23980

The Community Cook Book by Anonymous http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24387

It is not that science disproves — or tries to disprove — the existence of God. The acts of a transcendent creator are simply outside the realm of anything that science can examine…Ability to explain things without reference to God does not prove or even indicate the nonexistence of God.  … The concept of “good” recedes infinitely, resisting noncircular definition. Even when you find a good definition of “good,” you can’t say why it is a better definition than any other. But people of faith in a normative religion have decided and committed themselves to a code of decent conduct, not because it has been scientifically proven to be “better,” but because they believe it to be better on an admittedly unscientific basis. - Orson Scott Card, author http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-05-04-1.html

 ”I have learned that people put in a corner must fight or crumble, and the rightness of my position can be lost in the defeat of a person.” Bill Pollard, author The Soul of the Firm

Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.” — Montaigne

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. - Voltaire”

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.”
“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”
- Bruce Lee

Someone who walks into Best Buy and pays for a 47-inch plasma television with a credit card does not comprehend the difference between an asset and a liability. -Robert, Flimjo.com

people are made anxious by free-floating blame that hasn’t settled. Once someone says, “I messed up,” “That was my fault,” or “I’m sorry,” everyone can relax, forgive, and move on. - Gretchen Rubin, http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/

It is always a mistake to wait passively for bureaucracies and government agencies to “save” us.
Jerry White, co-founder of Survivor Corps (formerly Landmine Survivors Newwork), & author of “I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis.”

“The steam that blows the whistle never turns the wheel… ”
“Most people would rather die than think. Many often do. ”
“Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets replaced.”
-Dave Northrup http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/our-daily-bleg-got-anything-else-like-sht-happens/#comment-570358

…how much security do we want? …A world without failure is a world without freedom. A world without the possibility of sin is a world without the possibility of righteousness. A world without the possibility of crime is a world where you cannot prove you are not a criminal. A technology that can give you everything you want is a technology that can take away everything that you have. At some point, real soon now, some of us security geeks will have to say that there comes a point at which safety is not safe. - Dan Geer’s remarks at Source Boston 2008:

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination. - John Schaar

Common Sense by Thomas Paine http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/147

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/175

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3186

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/174

The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/128

traffic lights were fed the position and speed of all vehicles on nearby roads and programmed to calculate how to phase colour changes in order to optimise traffic flow

b. We don’t necessarily want people jumping the green light. That’s a safety issue. It’s bad enough people try to beat the red by zooming thru the yellow. (I’ve been guilty of it - hasn’t everyone?) But what if people were also beating the green? (It’s about to be green, so no need to brake…)

I have misgivings enough about putting my car on a traffic network or relying on one for information.  (I probably don’t have too much to worry about, since I live in the sticks and see less than 20 other cars on my way to work.)  But I have even bigger misgivings about what other people could do with that information.