Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable.

The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads.

The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.

... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.

We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.

Man has always seen himself the peak of creation. The part of the universe that thinks. The purpose for it all. It's no doubt a gratifying view, but the universe may have a different opinion.

Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.

Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it?

The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.

Faith is conviction without evidence, and sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, this quality is perceived as a virtue.

Where the world saw 'nothing'

…there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is - common decency.

There is something in us that is wiser than our head.

In the midst of all the chaos swirling through your brain, all the disorganization and impulsiveness, the condition (ADHD) also seems to trigger a certain kind of creativity.

It would be more honourable to our distinguished ancestors to praise them in words less, but in deeds to imitate them more.

The writer, like everyone else, is equipped in infancy with a thick padding of things he believes to be true, but which aren't.

Try seeing your world and yourself this way, eyes open to whatever is before you, mind free of dichotomies. Are you good or bad, fragile or tough, wise or foolish? Yes. And so am I.

Not causing trouble, not touching anything, fixing the primus.

I knew from a very young age that there was something very wrong with me

Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.