To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.

I’m a wandering gypsy.

I had nearly finished school because I was making effort not that bad on that. But there was a law in Germany after the war. You could not make your final examination before 18, so lots of people who were late because of the way had to do it first.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

For time is the longest distance between two places.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

As a global society, we do not have to agree, endorse or condone the lifestyle choices of others. However, history has taught us that we equally cannot and should not excuse those who would hide behind religion or misuse God’s word to justify bigotry and persecution.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

We are the most amazing creatures that this world has ever produced, but we seem to also have this herd mentality; we seem to be the most stupid, also.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

Remember, it is not about voting for the perfect candidate – there is no such thing. Presidents are human.

I love Africa, and Ulusaba, our home in South Africa, is pretty special. It’s on a rocky hill overlooking the bush, and from your room, you can see lions stalking zebras by the waterhole.

I was drafted during the Korean War. None of us wanted to go… It was only a couple of years after World War II had ended. We said, ‚Wait a second? Didn’t we just get through with that?‘

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

As a teenager, I went to Bali a lot, but it’s a long, long way from England. Which is why, when we bought Necker Island, we made it like a mini Bali.

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

I found that part of it towards San Salvador extending from north to south five leagues, and the other side which we coasted along, ran from east to west more than ten leagues.

When I’m doing a book tour in the States, I’ll wake up in the room sometimes in an anonymous chain hotel, and I don’t know where I am right away. I’ll go to the window, and it doesn’t help there either, especially if you’re in an anonymous strip and it’s the usual Victoria’s Secret, Gap, Chili’s, Applebee’s.

Acorns were good until bread was found.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

What’s fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

When I have been travelling around to speak in different countries, I am always offered help to write about the specific climate policies in specific countries. But that is not really necessary. Because the basic problem is the same everywhere.

Humanity is still advancing; and it will probably continue to advance for hundreds of thousands of years more, always on condition that we know how to keep the same line of advance as our ancestors towards ever greater consciousness and complexity.

My mum passing away wasn’t funny, but that funeral and what I went through, the things that happened, looking back at it, there were funny moments. You have to be strong enough to look back at it, to sit and assess the situation.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

Most home teams have chapels, so when I’m on the road I’ll probably go to their services.

I am rather inclined to silence.

Where ever I am I always find myself looking out the window wishing I was somewhere else.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

I’ve never doubted that apartheid – because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil – was going to bite the dust eventually.

There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.

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

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Sometimes I just sit still and enjoy God’s presence.

It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.