The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

The truth is that contraception saves lives, prevents unplanned pregnancies, improves outcomes for children and reduces the number of abortions.

Having a pet spayed or neutered actually extends its lifespan by a few years and reduces any aggressive traits or tendencies.

Energy efficiency not only saves businesses and consumers money, but it also reduces pollution by cutting energy use.

Vaccines are the most cost-effective health care interventions there are. A dollar spent on a childhood vaccination not only helps save a life, but greatly reduces spending on future healthcare.

Going meat-free can make a huge difference. Studies show that vegetarians are, on average, 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters and that a vegetarian diet reduces our risk of heart disease by 40 percent and adds seven or more years to our lifespan.

What I do know is that with a celebrity's death comes an avalanche of media, and in that media is most often another death - it takes a life that is filled with complicated talent, hope, success and drive and reduces it to the 'story.'

I don't think that VR is going to lead to humanity being enslaved in the matrix or letting the world crumble around us. I think it's going to end up being a great technology that brings closer people together, that allows for better communication, that reduces a lot of environmental waste that we're currently doing in the real world.

All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

I don't get it when you get so much openness about the way movies are made and the special effects and the behind-the-scenes stuff and all of that. I can't help but feel like this reduces it a little bit.

Going meat-free can make a huge difference. Studies show that vegetarians are on average 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters and that a vegetarian diet reduces our risk of heart disease by 40 percent and adds seven or more years to our lifespan.

Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap.

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone isolated on e-mail in chat rooms which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.