If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.

A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.

If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination.

Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.

We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.

Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.

As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.

The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.

The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.

It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do.

Suffering is nothing. It's all a matter of preventing those you love from suffering.

I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.

Intellectually, I loved my job, but I didn't get any meaning from it.

The real worth of a person came from how he acted during the bad times. (John Fiske)

The focus in the Creator Orientation is on a Vision or an Outcome. You orient your thoughts and actions toward creating what you most deeply want to see or experience in life.

For most people, life is nasty, brutish, and short; for me, it has simply been nasty and brutish.

If global warming is not contained, the West will face a choice of a refugee crisis of unimaginable proportions, or direct complicity in crimes against humanity.

She asked where he lived. Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.

The internet has made possible a frightening practice of threats and intimidation - threats of unspeakable violence and death.

I'm a decentralizer. I believe in trusting professionals.