“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
–Blaise Pascal

 
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
–Voltaire
 
“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”
–Napolean Bonaparte

by James Schroeder
Once upon a time a man found a large bone, flat on two sides. He put a mark on one side and two marks on the other side and then found another man with whom he gambled. The man tossed the bone in the air and the other man called one, [...]

 
He was the fifth World Champion, and though he held the title for barely two years, his achievement of defeating Alexander Alekhine in 1935 is still regarded as one of the great long shot victories in all of sports. Machgielis “Max” Euwe (pronounced “ervor” as in “fervor”) was never a chess “professional.” Having obtained a [...]

“I was 22 then and the youngest in the team. When, on the eve of the match (USSR vs. USA, Moscow, 1946–Ed.), the strategical battle plan was being decided upon, the first to speak was the elder, M. M. Botvinnik.
“Looking steadily at me, he pronnounced in a clear and imposing tone: ‘I hope that everyone [...]

 
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Schwarzschild Singularity, that numerical pit where zero and infinity are indistinguishable, implied by General Relativity–first rejected but later grudgingly accepted by Einstein–remains the enigmatic belly of the beasts known as Black Holes, arguably the most mystifying phenomena in the universe. If nature abhors numerical infinities, it evidently makes an exception for the unviewable inner [...]