There is nothing that overwhelms the senses quite like an unwelcome silence.

It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable.

The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads.

The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.

... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.

We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.

Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

Man has always seen himself the peak of creation. The part of the universe that thinks. The purpose for it all. It's no doubt a gratifying view, but the universe may have a different opinion.

Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.

Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it?

The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.

Racism doesn't have to fit our stereotypes for what it is in order for it to hurt - but it also means that tools for dismantling the system don't have it fit our stereotype either.

It is never any good dwelling on goodbyes. It is not the being together that it prolongs it is the parting.

It is impossible to know who you are until you enter into Samadhi.

I like to think of myself as a character actor, though there's some redundancy in that...

If I was a criminal, stationery stores and bakeries would be the two kinds of places I would concentrate on.

You raze the old to raise the new.

I am all too human, I don't always do the right thing, so how can I expect others to perform perfectly on the issues that are my top priority?

I tell myself that's what you get when you put thirty-one toilets on the most popular girl's front yard. People tend to treat you a little differently than before.

Choosing to have a child you can't take care of is like farting in an elevator. Sure you got it out, but not it's everyone else's problem.

Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization.