The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.

There is a hearty Puritanism in the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of 1787. It is the work of men who believed in original sin, and were resolved to leave open for transgressors no door which they could possibly shut.

James Bryce, On the U.S. Constit

The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law. - Romeo

William Shakespeare

There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever. We are constantly stumbling on new surprises

Carl Sagan

Just as the light of a candle has the power to dispel darkness in a room, so also the light developed in one man can help dispel darkness in several others.

Sayagyi U Ba Khin

Ive often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers.

William O. Douglas

The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything.

Anatole France

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals --or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all. A group of closely related persons living under one roof; it is a convenience, often a necessity, sometimes a pleasure, sometimes the reverse; but who first exalted it as admirable, an almost religious ideal?

Rose Macaulay

And who is any of us, that without starvation he can go through the kingdoms of starvation?

Haniel Long

We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official, a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges.

Sir Winston Churchill

Intelligence has no attachment to the opinion it has formed, but only to the truth it may contain; and, knowing that error insinuates itself under the guise of truth, through the same inlets by which truth is admitted, it is ever diffident of its att

Mary Worley Montagu

I ate mythology

Yusef Komunyakaa

The attorney general would call at 5 o'clock in the evening and say: 'Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we're likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.'

Harold H. Greene