With increasing frequency and growing vehemence, you hear people saying they are ashamed to be Australians.

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.

Justice suffers when men refuse to stand firm for what is right.

It appeared that way, Lawrence, but this raised the question of was mathematics really true or was it just a game played with symbols? In other words—are we discovering Truth, or just wanking?

I owe the little formal education I got to my drama teacher, Mr. Pickett, who got us to read Shakespeare, Moliere, and other classics.

A cute outfit can really make your day. If I wear something I look good in, my mood just goes way up.

Men have to be reminded that women exist.

All things, and man as well, should be like nature, without measure.

It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice.

Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.

His best-known piece is probably his "Canon in D." He also has 'Hexachordium Apollonis', which is also quite famous.

. . . but the Universe is an awfully big place. There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree.