I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

I did not set out to convert anyone to Christianity.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It’s too controversial.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

The intellectual is different from the ordinary man, but only in certain sections of his personality, and even then not all the time.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.

The humanists‘ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.

I sincerely believe… that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

Facts are not interesting to me.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

I believe in universal health care. And I am not afraid to say so.

The issues that cross a president’s desk are never easy. The easy questions don’t even get to the president.

I think America has always been polarized.

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

To me, ideology is corrupt; it’s a parasite on religious structures. To be an ideologue is to have all of the terrible things that are associated with religious certainty and none of the utility. If you’re an ideologue, you believe everything that you think. If you’re religious, there’s a mystery left there.

There’s some jerks. There’s some big egos. There are a few that think they’re one of the Founding Fathers… in both parties.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.

When I hear Mitt Romney say that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He’s the Christ, raised from the dead, that He’s his savior – that’s good enough for me.

Let it be our delight to find our society in the circle of which Jesus is the center, and let us make those our friends who are the friends of Jesus.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

Politics has always been ugly to me, and yet I accept that as a fact of life.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

How can a president not be an actor?

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

There is a fundamental question we all have to face. How are we to live our lives; by what principles and moral values will we be guided and inspired?

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

It’s nice to say let’s be bipartisan. But we’re a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.