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“There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged; everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.”

Automation is on the rise in areas previously regarded as beyond the reach of machines.

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and so they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.”

A new site launched this week serves as a platform for writers to share their plays and readers to discover exciting new works.

Waiting until the last minute isn’t a healthy or productive way to produce your best stuff. Musician Dan Deacon has a unique take on creativity: draw your inspiration from boredom.

Swiss researchers, operating with the knowledge that kids learn better when able to teach their skills to other pupils, have developed a robot student to assist with lessons in penmanship.

“Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.”  

“Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.”

“Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn, and laughter…”

“There is more than one kind of wisdom, and all are essential in the world; it is not bad that they should alternate.”

Advances in download speed, digital storage, and device capabilities have led to an audiobook renaissance. With such a rising demand for spoken entertainment, could the dormant audio drama format make a mainstream comeback?

College isn’t a time to curl up in a ball when challenging material comes on the table that might unsettle you or puncture your worldview. A higher education can be, and should be, transformative.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” 

The standard line against painter John Singer Sargent goes like this: a very good painter of incredible technique, but little substance who flattered the rich and famous with decadently beautiful portraiture — a Victorian Andrea del Sarto of sorts whose reach rarely exceeded his considerable artistic grasp. A new exhibition of Sargent’s work and the accompanying catalogues argue that he was much more than a painter of pretty faces. Instead, the exhibition Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends and catalogues challenge us to see Sargent’s omnivorous mind, which swallowed up nascent modernist movements not just in painting, but also in literature, music, and theater. Sargent the omnivore’s dilemma thus lies in being too many things at once and tasking us to multitask with him.

The late popular science writer felt very strongly that facts and theories should be understood to be two separate things.

“I don’t say I was ‘proceeding down a thoroughfare.’ I say I ‘walked down the road.’ I don’t say I ‘passed a hallowed institute of learning.’ I say I ‘passed a school.’ You don’t wear all your jewellery at once. You’re much more believable if you talk in your own voice.”

Want more realistic sci-fi? Consult a scientist. Here’s how you get access. “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” –Isaac […]

Perhaps in an attempt to compete with disruptors like Airbnb, some hotels are upping their game by incorporating new technology with regard to facilities and amenities.

Winning a competition or completing a challenge causes your brain to release dopamine. Game makers can elicit more positive reactions from players by designing toward this end.

The state of Colorado is legally obligated to return a portion of the excess tax revenue generated by legal marijuana sales, but now, state legislatures are balking at the rule.

In today’s Washington Post, a successful writer and former teacher offers a simple quiz for teachers to determine whether they’re cut out for the position.

No matter how hard they try, comics never seem to be able to turn the genderist tide. As Jill Lepore points out, “They all look like porn stars.” Why do comics still get women heroes wrong?

If Flannery O’Connor somehow birthed the love child of Sid Vicious, she might end up sounding like novelist Nell Zink. Equal parts Southern Gothic’s grotesquely twisted charm and punk and alternative music’s insiderish anti-establishmentism, Zink’s second novel Mislaid will disorient you until you let it delight you. Zink’s mix — which I’ll call Southern Gothic Punk — might be an acquired taste, but a taste well worth experiencing if only to break out of the contemporary rut of MFA-programed, sound-alike fiction that’s become the bubblegum pop of today’s literature.

“I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention — invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.”

“Every book, remember, is dead until a reader activates it by reading. Every time that you read you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies.”

The author of a new book on straightening out bad personal habits recently offered a basic glimpse into her anti-sabotage playbook.

A new wave of authors — think of them as Richard Dawkins’ more evolved descendants — is building the case for a “new atheism” that focuses more on what it values than on a blanket rejection of God.

We could lose the ability to interpret digital data as software progresses and leaves old ways of coding data behind.

Not all bad bosses are mean, says The Seattle Times’ Lisa Quast. Most are simply not invested in their work. Employees who want to extract value from the relationship need to adopt strategies for communication.

“Human beings are good at many things, but thinking about our species as a whole is not one of our strong points.”