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“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” — Ayn Rand

A former drug addict and a woman with a dark past are not exactly the kind of people one would look up to. However, Evgheni and Svetlana Isaev have shown that the past does not prevent anyone from completely changing their lives and becoming the pride of a nation.

It happens to all of us. We misplace the keys, forget a phone number or where we put our reading glasses. With age, such things happen more often, whether we like it or not. The good news is, our brain continues to produce new cells regardless of our age. Therefore, it is possible to have a good memory despite the aging process.

“My sadness hears the unborn dogs / barking at the unborn people.” (Romanian poet Nichita Stănescu)

People can’t live on bread alone. They also need hope.

We are leaving. Even if we were not supposed to, we chose to and it is happening. We are moving again. It is the eighth time in eleven years of marriage.

Courage is a special virtue: unlike other virtues that can be formed and polished over time, courage only makes itself known spontaneously and fully in situations where one is required to act, proving its existence.

Sexual extortion or “sextortion” is a form of blackmail where someone threatens to share an intimate image or video of you unless you meet their demands. Often, they’ll intimidate you by threatening to send the compromising content to everybody on your contact list unless you send money or more explicit images or videos of yourself.

There are times when life sets before us an opportunity for radical change. Such a moment led Narayanan Krishnan to dedicate his life to feeding the poor and the mentally disabled on the streets of India.

"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)

To have willpower does not mean saying you want to do something, it means to actually be doing it—André Maurois

How much do we know about love? Enough to understand that love is not an obligation—we cannot love by force, nor be loved in this way.

I’m a walking contradiction when it comes to technology. I spend far too much time on the internet—some productive, such as paying bills, researching for my work and reading the news, but mostly wasted time on one-too-many funny cat videos—but I’m still using a Nokia E71 mobile phone bought in 2009. (Don’t laugh! It did win Mobile Choice’s phone of the year in...

This article contains stories of kindness, courage and generosity. By their simplicity they prove that all it takes to do good is a heart that is open to the needs of others.

"Why is everyone so angry about everything all of the time?" That was the title of a Sydney Morning Herald article by journalist and academic Waleed Aly. The question was originally tweeted by Sally, a viewer of the BBC’s Question Time.