Jefferson attributes to a college professor and mentor his lifelong habit of questioning conventional wisdom.

Jefferson was the rare student who came to college already knowing that there could be joy in studying.

The feelings of politicians are rarely transparent.

The author characterizes Hamilton's tone in the Federalist papers by saying that he never spoke of problems but of being at the last stage in the crisis.

For leaders, wars are filled with guesses.

Alexander Hamilton reflected as early as the middle of the Revolutionary War that rallying at the last minute was part of the national character of his countrymen.

Established churches not infrequently formed an alliance with the aristocracy, joining arm in arm against change.

Were people to mingle only with those of like mind, every man would be an insulate being." Thomas Jefferson

Pointing out the possible, and expensive, entanglements that could come with widespread commercial enterprise, the author calculates the Great Britain was at war half the time between 1689 and 1783.

a real partnership in which all parties help all others to be more fully themselves

It bothers me when people have no problem paying for all they can eat but have problems investing in all they can be.

Love is the softest rose in the soul's garden.

Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.'

I have never cared enough about money to worry about spending it, and have been fortunate to make enough to be spoiled rotten.

In my bright, utopian future world, they will hand out college educations like cups of water at the end of the L.A. Marathon.

Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.

I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.

Ritual use of psychedelic plants and substances has been a particularly effective technology for inducing holotropic states of consciousness.

I love to dwell on the thought that the artist is next in divinity to the saint. He, like the saint, performs miracles.