The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

I have this feeling that the world is not in balance. And people are afraid, but we’re also starting to be really brave.

We came into a broken world. And we’re the cleanup crew.

All our actions, as well as our thoughts and words, should praise Him who always blesses us.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally.

I never admire another’s fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.

I understand that being able to appeal to the public and having an amazing sense of humour is not something that comes easy. It’s definitely a gift and for which I’m thankful.

I’ve been really, really fortunate.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

We often represent God to ourselves as being able to draw from non-being a world without sorrows, faults, dangers – a world in which there is no damage, no breakage. This is a conceptual fantasy and makes it impossible to solve the problem of evil.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

My wife has about everything I can think of.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured; all the Heavens are rejoicing.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.

Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

I love being American, and I love family. I love having a family, and I feel so blessed, and I feel like God gave me exactly what I wanted, so now I have to do the right thing in God’s eyes also. Just follow what God wants me to do.

For the people who ostensibly wish me well or are worried about my immortal soul, I say I take it kindly.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

I saw 14 games in two and a half months at Churchill. It was what I really signed for. They were eyeing the championship and also playing the AFC Cup. So I am very thankful for Churchill, the coaching staff and the players.

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

Look, freedom is an overwhelming American notion. The idea that we want to see the world, the peoples of the world free is something that all of us subscribe to.

Humor is reason gone mad.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

You just want something else that someone else has, but that doesn’t mean what you have isn’t beautiful, because people always want what you have, and you always want what they have – no one is ever 100 per cent like, ‚Yes, I’m the bomb dot com – from head to toe!‘

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Love has reasons which reason cannot understand.

I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.

I was a chemistry major, but I’m always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I’ve brought scientific thinking to literature. There’s been very little gratitude for this.

Death is the king of this world: ‚Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.