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1 " Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any point of contact with actuality. It offers purely imaginary causes (" God" " soul," " ego," " spirit," " free will" -- " unfree will" for that matter), and purely imaginary effects (" sin," " salvation," " grace," " punishment," " forgiveness of sins" ). Intercourse between imaginary beings (" God," " spirits," " souls" ); an imaginary natural science (anthropocentric; a total denial of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary psychology (misunderstandings of self, misinterpretations of agreeable or disagreeable general feelings -- for example, of the states of the nervus sympathicus with the help of the sign-language of religio-ethical balderdash -- , " repentance," " pangs of conscience," " temptation by the devil," " the presence of God" ); an imaginary teleology (the " kingdom of God," " the last judgment," " eternal life" ). -- This purely fictitious world, greatly to its disadvantage, is to be differentiated from the world of dreams; the later at least reflects reality, whereas the former falsifies it, cheapens it and denies it. Once the concept of " nature" had been opposed to the concept of " God," the word " natural" necessarily took on the meaning of " abominable" -- the whole of that fictitious world has its sources in hatred of the natural (-- the real! --), and is no more than evidence of a profound uneasiness in the presence of reality. . . . This explains everything. Who alone has any reason for lying his way out of reality? The man who suffers under it. But to suffer from reality one must be a botched reality. . . . The preponderance of pains over pleasures is the cause of this fictitious morality and religion: but such a preponderance also supplies the formula for decadence... "
2 " We have not given science too big a place in our education, but we have made a perilous mistake in giving it too great a preponderance in method in every other branch of study. "
― Woodrow Wilson
3 " She never got a chance to fall out of love, to do it properly, slowly and thoroughly, and the result was he was like a phantom limb. Gone but still there. And like a true phantom limb, the preponderance of feelings associated with him were painful. "
― Sarah Dunn
4 " When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail. When the preponderance of human beings choose power, greed, and indifference to suffering, the world is filled with war, poverty, and cruelty. "
― Mary Doria Russell , A Thread of Grace
5 " Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue hapiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex. "
― Isaac Asimov , The Naked Sun
6 " Although the outward picture of depression is quite the opposite of that of grandiosity and has a quality that expresses the tragedy of the loss of self in a more obvious way, they have many points in common:- The false self that has led to the loss of the potential true self - A fragility of self-esteem because of a lack of confidence in one’s own feelings and wishes- Perfectionism- Denial of rejected feelings- A preponderance of exploitative relationships- An enormous fear of loss of love and therefore a great readiness to conform- Split-off aggression- Oversensitivity- A readiness to feel shame and guilt- Restlessness "
― Alice Miller
7 " In one timeless instant a complex impression, not of knowledge but of feeling, penetrated her awareness like an indelible dream. An imprint of evil and a preponderance of good, both crying that somehow it was meant to be. Then nothing, only the cold apathy of deepest space. "
― Marcha A. Fox , Beyond the Hidden Sky (Star Trails Tetralogy, #1)
8 " An ethnic minority can live in peace with an ethnic majority as long as the majority does not use its preponderance to turn the institutions of the state into an instrument of ethnic favoritism or ethnic justice. "
― Michael Ignatieff , The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience
9 " Wisdom of the Ages: " National Symbol" With the preponderance of lawyers, banksters, arms, drug and tobacco dealers in our government, shouldn't our national symbol be changed from the eagle to the vulture? "
10 " It might be added, too, that it takes something more than preponderance of numbers to win a battle.... "
11 " Yet despite all these things we know to be true- despite the preponderance of evidence showing the mental and emotional distress people demonstrate in violent and harassing environments- we still have no name for what happens to women living in a culture that hates them. "
― Jessica Valenti , Sex Object: A Memoir
12 " Health messages are simply overwhelmed, in volume and in effectiveness, by junk-food ads that often deploy celebrities or cartoon characters to great effect. We may know that eating fruits and vegetables is good for us, but the preponderance of the signals we get - and especially the signals children get - push us in the direction of junk food. "