An epic subject requires a writer of epic skill and scope, and we have a perfect pairing in Cleopatra and Stacy Schiff. Absorbing and illuminating, this new biography will endure.

We often talk too much & listen too little. The surer route to winning a friend isn't to convince them that you're right, but that you care what they think.

Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma.

[T]o argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt.

A lot of people, including business leaders, think the future belongs to China. Globalization is not a zero-sum game, but we need to hone our skills to stay in play.

Religious belief, like history itself, is a story that is always unfolding, always subject to inquiry and ripe for questioning. For without doubt there is no faith.

The Occupy Wall Street protests at last suggest that America's wealth gap is once again becoming an organizing political principle in the country.

Liberty is precious. But so is life. It should not be so difficult for men and women of good will and good heart and sound mind to find the right balance between the two.

In the fullness of time, I suspect that bigotry against homosexuals will seem as repugnant as racial prejudice does today. Or so one hopes.

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty.

Jefferson was the rare leader who stood out from the crowd without intimidating it.

Governments always commit their entire populations when the demands grow heavy enough. By their passive acceptance, these populations become accessories to whatever is done in their name.

I'm not going to argue with people about the existence of God. I have not the vaguest idea of whether the universe was created by an intelligence.

If our lives are made up of a string of a thousand moments, at some of those moments we look a lot more spiritually evolved than at others.

I started finding hearts in things - whether it was like, a tree I was passing, a straw wrapper on the ground, I think the heart has one continuous line, which is very powerful.

Never say things to friends which you don't want to hear from enemies.

Guess in my brain I have a figurative 'man card' that's got certain punches that need to be punched.

The industrial age had only just begun; the planet had reached its Best Before date.

Love is a fine cushion to rest upon, but only hate can make you a better person.

That is to say, politics is essentially about the management of fear, an economy of fear, continually adjusting the level of fear to produce the right level of affect in the citizenry.

The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.