Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.

An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.

What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It's the weight on our shoulders. That is what's actually different. We have the weight and burden of history.

The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.

I did not know then that this is what life is - just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you're swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.

When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.

Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.

[E]mpathy - not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance - is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.

You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.

If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.

The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.

Liars are exhausting people.

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.

I would rather have it said, 'He lived usefully,' than, 'He died rich.'

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends.

Half the variations which are calculated in a tournament game turn out to be completely superfluous. Unfortunately, no one knows in advance which half

To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

The most difficult of enterprises is to secure the cooperation of others in enterprises those others did not think of first.

You won't learn if you think you already know everything.

To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws.