For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.

Honest history is the weapon of freedom.

The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

The basic human rights documents-the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man-were written by political, not by religious, leaders.

What we need is a rebirth of satire, of dissent, of irreverence, of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.

History is, indeed, an argument without end.

The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office.

Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.

Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.

Politics in a democracy is, at the end, an educational process.

Just us fancy wise-men trying to take on the world.

Sometimes it's right to do the wrong thing.

When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English.

Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.

It is ultimately character that underwrites art.

3 years ago I was stocking shelves at Target, living on Ramen noodles, and crashing at Billy's house. Now I'm on tour

As someone who played a team sport, I feel a bit uncomfortable being ranked as an individual so high.

Poverty is not just a material problem. Poverty is something wider: it is about powerlessness, about being deprived of basic opportunities and freedom of choice.

You cheat yourself when you don't do what it is you're supposed to do. You have an obligation to learn everything that you can.

I've dealt with a lot of guns over my career, so I'm getting better and better with firearms.