The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.

He who dares not offend cannot be honest.

[A]ll churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

Religion is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

That tingle in the brain is called a word.It bats itself against its fleshy bounds.

We really are creatures of a violent world, biologically speaking - watching violence and learning about it is one of our cognitive drives.

Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.

No man can rule the unruly until he first rules himself.

You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death.

I moved to New York to do a play when I was 18.

I'm very, very sad to say that the only Sondheim show I've done is "A Little Night Music" and it was when I was in college.

Art is an experience, not the formulation of a problem.

Luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it.

In the women's movement, women needed men to stand up and say, 'This isn't right.' In the civil rights of the '60s, it took people of all color to demand equal rights.