Indeed, in the present climate of mistrust of institutions, many people who yearn for a more meaningful and fulfilling life would regard the church as an unlikely place to go for guidance.

The copycat effects of media violence, similar to those previously attributed to westerns, radio serials and comic books, are easy to exaggerate.

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.

So, if falling crime rates coincide with the rise of violent video games and increasing violence on TV and at the cinema, should we conclude that media violence is causing the drop in crime rates?

Actually, I can't imagine anything more tedious than a perfect person, especially if it was someone who also demanded perfection from me.

I suspect the secret of personal attraction is locked up in our unique imperfections, flaws and frailties.

Universal literacy was a 20th-century goal. Before then, reading and writing were skills largely confined to a small, highly educated class of professional people.

The thing we need most is each other.

Obviously, every child should be given the best possible opportunity to acquire literacy skills.

It's Australian to do such things because, however uncivilised they may seem, it's human to do them.

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us, feeling the world is unpredictable enough, try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives.

Insecure people often falsify the past, in order to make the future pure.

You are being fashioned into one of two images, either God's or the worlds. Make a choice!

American workers are first rate.

Delhi is definitely a foodie's paradise.

I now have Croatian citizenship, but I only accepted it because Croatia allowed me to keep my Russian passport.

I'll lift you and you lift me, and we'll both ascend together.

Necessity is the ethnicity of truth.

Once a changemaker, always a changemaker but only a few swim against the tide.

A person loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary, or journal.

Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment; and I have known a man come home in high spirits from a funeral, merely because he has had the management of it.