The function of a briefing paper is to prevent the ambassador from saying something dreadfully indiscreet. I sometimes think its true object is to prevent the ambassador from saying anything at all.

Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the risk of displeasure.

Maybe you are the "cool" generation. If coolness means a capacity to stay calm and use your head in the service of ends passionately believed in, then it has my admiration.

There is no lasting hope in violence, only temporary relief from hopelessness.

We all live in a televised goldfish bowl.

While the spoken word can travel faster, you can't take it home in your hand. Only the written word can be absorbed wholly at the convenience of the reader.

The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.

If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you that it's quite conscious.

You and I know that there is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.

The fullness or emptiness of life will be measured by the extent to which a man feels that he has an impact on the lives of others.

There is no greater challenge than to have someone relying upon you; no greater satisfaction than to vindicate his expectation.

Diligence, hard work, perseverance, excellence are the values that will make us have developed society.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

There are very few people on top of life, and the rest of us don't like them very much.

Dread not events unknown, and be not downhearted, for the fountain of the water of life is involved in obscurity.

The meaning of life is that it is to be lived.

I've realized that in all the great stories, even if there's a happily-ever-after ending, there's something sad.

Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority.

Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.

It was all a matter of control. And Choice. Nothing more, nothing less

I think there are other issues that the Democrats could use to rally evangelicals. There are a lot of us, for instance, who believe that the Bible calls us to be environmentally responsible.