Analysis

The importance of humour, including in the workplace, is often undervalued, as a series of studies suggest.

In the heart of the most powerful man in Judea, a greater fear than any other was born: the fear of losing control. Herod's story could be our story.

Sometimes we are so absorbed in our beautiful Christmas traditions that we don't even realize that our love for them makes them ugly.

Every January, economic and governmental elites gather in their hundreds in Davos, the exclusive ski resort in Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum holds its annual high-level meeting. This year, because of the pandemic, the in-person meeting had to be rescheduled. But the controversies surrounding the meeting's theme – The Great Reset – were not postponed.

I once invited the cashier at my local 7-Eleven petrol station to join me and my friends on a beach couch made of sand to eat hotdogs after his shift. To our surprise, he not only came but continued to join us for months after.

In the late 1980s, Donald Trump was asked how much money it would take to make him happy. His answer? “Ten per cent more.” 

"If I were tortured, I would confess to anything. I would confess to being the Sultan of Turkey," says Goya in a film by Milos Forman. "No, you wouldn't!" Father Lorenzo contradicts him, but Goya insists: "I would confess anything to avoid torment."

Many people know the Lord’s Prayer, having learned it from a parent or grandparent. But few know that it was given as a response to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray.

What if change is given to us to use only as long as we continue to work for it?

"If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light." (Victor Hugo)

“For men’s religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure. This is made evident to our lord the king by the scriptures.” These are...

Izzeldin Abuelaish wrote a book titled I Shall Not Hate, now translated into 13 languages, about the hatred that led to the death of his daughters. "Hate is a poison, a fire which burns you from the inside," he writes.

Social interactions and the tools that facilitate them are changing the world in ways that even now, after all this time, we cannot anticipate.

As the balmy Australian summer took a chilly turn, I found myself sitting one day in a pub in Jindabyne, New South Wales with a friend attempting to escape the bitter autumn weather. As I took in the ambience, I reflected on what was a largely alien environment to me.

What would you think if your doctor prescribed a dose of nature, as a clinical and therapeutic treatment—to admire a cloud, to have a meal at the beach, to bury your face in the grass? This is exactly what some doctors are doing, after studies have shown the benefits of connecting with nature—especially since the trend of moving away from nature in recent...