The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one person.

What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership.

Young Americans are dropping out of religion at an alarming rate of five to six times the historic rate.

Our national myths often exaggerate the role of the individual heroes and understate the importance of collective effort.

No sane person should believe that something is subjective merely because it cannot be settled beyond controversy.

People may go to the library looking mainly for information, but they find each other there.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves.

Cut the pie any way you like, "meanings" just ain't in the head!

While there is such a thing as correctness in ethics, in interpretation, in mathematics, the way to understand that is not by trying to model it on the ways in which we get things right in physics.

... causes (pains) are not logical constructions out of their effects (behaviour).

I think part of the appeal of mathematical logic is that the formulas look mysterious - you write backward Es!

Just because you're not successful doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.

Out of our suffering we emerge. Our struggles are really our only hope.

People could say a lot of negative things about the apocalypse, but there was no arguing the air quality in Los Angeles had really improved.

This Nation has realized significant environmental improvements over the last three decades.

Music used to be essential and meaningful, but now it's disposable.

The weak overcomes its/ menace, the strong over-/comes itself.

I am the best bodyguard, because I'll take a bullet, I'll take a stab wound, I'll take a hit upside the head; I'm like a kamikaze pilot.

A "New York Times"/CBS poll found 59 percent of the country didn't think Sarah Palin was prepare for the job that John McCain had picked her for.

For someone so small, you're heavy, Stiff," he mutters.

isn't it funny how danger makes people passionate?