Michael Schaefer:  

Michael is from Millstadt, Illinois. Michael's schools include Belleville Township West High School. Michael works(ed) at St. Louis Public Library. Music Michael likes includes The Skints, This Will Destroy You, Dead Kennedys. Books Michael likes include Paul Kurtz, Qur'an, Martha Nussbaum. Movies Michael likes include Enlighten Up!, Repo Man (1984), The Matrix Trilogy. TV shows Michael likes include The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live. One of Michael's favorite quotes is:""When I am in the mosque, I am Hafiz who has memorized the whole Qur'an/When I am in the tavern, I am Hafiz who drinks the dregs." - Hafiz "The world is all One/But the One is off balance." - MC Gift of Gab from Blackalicious “A good man draws a circle around him, and in it he cares for his family, his wife and children. A great man draws a larger circle including his brothers, his friends, and protects them as he would his family. But then there is the rare man who has a special destiny. His circle extends beyond boundaries to include the world of innocents who lack the will to defend themselves.” - from the movie "10,000 BC" "Newton’s 300-year-old theory of mechanics and gravity has been superseded by Einstein’s which will be succeeded by M theory or its unknown successor in the future. But in a thousand years time schoolchildren will still study Newton’s theories, and engineers will still rely upon them, just as they do today. So, in our religious conceptions of the Universe, we also use approximations and analogies to have some grasp of ultimate things. They are not the whole truth but this does not stop them from being a part of the truth: a shadow that is cast in a limiting situation of some simplicity." - John Barrow, physicist, mathematician, cosmologist "Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else's ability or with the thought 'The monk is our teacher.' When you know in yourselves: 'These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness,' then you should practice and abide in them..." - The Buddha, Kalama Sutta "Civilization is a permanent exercise in respect. Respect for the divine, the earth, for out fellow man and so for our own dignity." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "It is a fine thing when a man who thoroughly understands a subject is unwilling to open his mouth, and only speaks when he is questioned." "Of all things that lead astray the heart of man there is nothing like fleshly lust. What a weakly thing is this heart of ours." "To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare." "A well-bred man does not show strong likings. His enjoyment appears careless. It is rustic boors who take all pleasures grossly....there is nothing they do not regard as their own." - Yoshida Kenkō, 1283–1350, Japanese author and Buddhist monk "To choose acceptance of death as the supreme and normative possibili...Expand for more