I met my grandfather just before he died, and it was the first time that I had seen Dad with a relative of his. It was interesting to see my own father as a son and the body language and alteration in attitude that comes with that, and it sort of changed our relationship for the better.

My personal view is that such total planning by the state is an absolute good and not simply a relative good... I do not myself think of the attitude I take as deriving from Marx - though this undoubtedly will be suggested - but from Fichte and Hegel.

'Easter' is a movable event, calculated by the relative positions of sun and moon, an impossible way of fixing year by year the anniversary of a historical event, but a very natural and indeed inevitable way of calculating a solar festival. These changing dates do not point to the history of a man, but to the hero of a solar myth.

Where anger can be seen as a relative positive in a man, it is hardly ever perceived as anything other than a negative in a woman.

Sometimes the routes leading to feelings of anger are so convoluted and circuitous that it takes enormous skill to discern their original source, or fountainhead. But regardless of the reason for or the source of the anger or the relative ease or complexity in perceiving either the anger or its source - everybody, but everybody, gets angry.

I think that Scottish people, like Canadians, are often misunderstood and what I like about my Scottish friends and relatives is how quickly it can go from love to anger. It's a great dynamic.

Remember that you own what happened to you. If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." But that was then. Just put down on paper everything you can remember now about your parents and siblings and relatives and neighbors, and we will deal with libel later on.

The only way to set yourself free is to meet each new challenge relatively.

That would be a ghostwriter worth keeping hold of! But my books are relatively short. A GRRM volume is well over twice as long. I think my main asset is that I write things once. I don't have the draft draft draft disease that some suffer from. I've never deleted a page and rewritten it, some authors rewrite whole chapters or remove or add characters. That's going to make it a lengthy process.

When you choose to cover up the mistakes of someone, because of your love for them, or because of brotherhood, sisterhood, you're their parent , relative or family member . Don't just choose to make excuses for them, but also choose to tell them what they did wrong, so that they won't repeat it again. If you cover for them, but they don't see their fault. They will never do right and one day, the wrong things they do. They will do them, to you or to someone you really close to.

The absolute truth is one for an infinity of possible relative truths which lie.

I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.

I encounter one example after another of how relative truth is.

Things never have an absolute value; they have relative value, relative to the circumstance. There can be a time when even 10 bucks can be important for you, and at another time, even a grand is nothing.

"Society, Relatives, Guilt, Haters, Fear, Ego: they are all stepping stones to success.

"Society, Relatives, Guilt, Haters, Fear, Ego: they are all stepping stones to succes.

Whatever else it might be in its various forms, religion names a structure of valuation predicated on the absolute value of God and the relative value of creatures, an infinite relationship of exchange between the one and the many.

"It appeared to the Elders that the people here would believe anything about themselves, no matter how preposterous, as long as it was flattering. To make sure of this, they performed an experiment. They put the idea into Earthlings' heads that the whole Universe had been created by one big animal who looked just like them. He sat on a throne with a lot of less fancy thrones all around him. When people died they got to sit on those other thrones forever because they were such close relatives of the Creator.

It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thing that's worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin's right -that it's an idea made up by men? Then, if He doesn't exist, man is the king of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? That's the question. I always come back to that. Who is man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity instead of God. Well, only an idiot can maintain that. I can't understand it. Life's easy for Rakitin. 'You'd better think about the extension of civic rights, or of keeping down the price of meat. You will show your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than by philosophy.' I answered him: 'Well, but you, without a God, are more likely to raise the price of meat if it suits you, and make a rouble on every penny.' He lost his temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer that, Alyosha. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a Chinaman, so it's relative. Or isn't it? Is it not relative? A treacherous question! You won't laugh if I tell you it's kept me awake for two nights. I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it. Vanity!

The Theory of Relativity makes nobody angry because it doesn't contradict any of our cherished beliefs. Most people don't care an iota whether space and time are absolute or relative. If you think it is possible to bend space and time, well be my guest. ...In contrast, Darwin has deprived us of our souls. If you really understand the Theory of Evolution, you understand that there is no soul. This is a terrifying thought, not only to devote Christians and Muslims, but also to many secular people who don't hold any clear religious dogma, but nevertheless, want to believe that each human possess an eternal, individual essence that remains unchanged throughout life and can survive even death intact.

It is reasonable to love the Absolute absolutely for the same reason it is reasonable to love the relative relatively.

Why is it so difficult for us to think in relative terms? Well, for the good reason that human nature loves absoluteness, and erroneously considers it as a state of higher knowledge.

"On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.

The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offense.