Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

States are not moral agents.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

When you have a conflict, that means that there are truths that have to be addressed on each side of the conflict. And when you have a conflict, then it’s an educational process to try to resolve the conflict. And to resolve that, you have to get people on both sides of the conflict involved so that they can dialogue.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

I only act from my heart.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

What people see on court is another side of me; it’s not me.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

I’m blessed to have such a tight-knit family that we can talk about anything. Whether we talk frequently or not, since we’re on separate ends of the country, there are a lot of moving parts, and we always stay tight and find that center ground that keeps us together.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.

Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Being politically correct means saying what’s polite rather than what’s accurate. I like to be accurate.

If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

I write all of my own speeches.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Hear reason, or she’ll make you feel her.

Language is the dress of thought.

I love that I can tell the truth and have people laugh at it.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.