Mark Twain on Sermonizing
“Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.”
Amen to that!
Similar Posts
Great Opening Paragraph: On Monk Seals?
Byadmin
Here’s the opening paragraph from a New York Times magazine article published in May of this year, about monk seals. What a great way to open the piece: The Hawaiian monk seal has wiry whiskers and the deep, round eyes of an apologetic child. The animals will eat a variety of fish and selfish, or…
Great Quote on the Psychology of Science
Byadmin
I recently read Margalit Fox’s wonderful book, “The Riddle of the Labyrinth,” which tells the extraordinary tale of how three people, working in parallel, figured out the meaning of what, to me, look like random scribbles on ancient tablets – the language known as Linear B. In trying to deduce the riddle of these scribbles,…
Power of Analogy
Byadmin
From time to time in this blog, I take a moment to celebrate fine writing. Here is an example I came across in an article in Smithsonian magazine from May 2014. The author, Corey Powell , was trying to explain how astronomers use gravitational “tug” to indirectly reveal the existence of planets. In other words, they can’t…
iEconomics?
Byadmin
Check out this clever takeoff of the Mac/PC ads by my friend Dan Ariely, in which he portrays standard economics as a PC and behavioral economics, my specialty, as an iMac.
On Leadership: Why People Pick Boring Jobs
Byadmin
Would you rather work in a stimulating, challenging job or a routine one filled with mundane repetition? Almost everyone would say they prefer the former. But a new study finds that people typically contradict themselves once salaries enter the decision. If the two jobs pay the same, people often opt to put out less effort, not more….
Are Infertility Doctors Turning into Predatory Bankers?
Byadmin
Somewhere near where you live, a couple will discover this week that they are infertile and that if they want biological children of their own, they are going to need in vitro fertilization (or IVF). According to treatment protocol, the woman will need to take powerful medicines to ramp up her production of fertilizable eggs….