"The stability of a society depends on how it responds to the extremes of human behaviour."

A society is loosely defined as a gathering of people sharing common property and values. These values extend not only to physical assets like real estate, but also encompass intellectual issues such as cultural values, language, ( Read more... )

The following appeared in a memorandum written by the vice president of Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products. "Previous experience has shown that our stores are most profitable in areas where residents are highly concerned with leading healthy lives. We should therefore build our next new store in ( Read more... )

"We can usually learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose views contradict our own; disagreement can cause stress and inhibit learning."

To be successful in life, there exists one guaranteed method - increasing knowledge. A person who explicitly aims to improve his knowledge base by reading ( Read more... )

The following appeared in a corporate planning memo at ABC Cereal Company, the makers of Better Bran cereal. "Sales of Better Bran have declined in recent years, for reasons that management has now identified. First, Better Bran is a cereal with high sugar content, and recent research studies have found that most consumers say they are concerned ( Read more... )

"When we concern ourselves with the study of history, we become storytellers. Because we can never know the past directly but must construct it by interpreting evidence, exploring history is more of a creative enterprise than it is an objective pursuit. All historians are storytellers."

History is a study of the past. It ( Read more... )

The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of a company that builds shopping malls throughout the country. "The surface of a section of Route 101, paved two years ago by McAdam Road Builders, is now badly cracked and marred by dangerous potholes. In another part of the state, a section of Route 66, paved by Appian Roadways more than ( Read more... )

"Our declining environment may bring the people of the world together as no politician, philosopher, or war ever could. Environmental problems are global in scope and respect no nation's boundaries. Therefore, people are faced with the choice of unity and cooperation on the one hand or disunity and a common tragedy on the other."
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The following appeared in a memorandum from a dean at Omega University. "Fifteen years ago, Omega University implemented a new procedure that encouraged students to evaluate the teaching effectiveness of all their professors. Since that time, Omega professors have begun to assign higher grades in their classes, and overall student grade averages at ( Read more... )