Today, I think, the state of philosophizing about democracy is very healthy. It bridges political science and philosophy, as it should.

To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control.

Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.

Our emotional life maps our incompleteness: A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger.

Philosophers should be, as Seneca put it, 'lawyers for humanity'. Make what you think and feel count; the examined life has global dimensions.

But the life that no longer trust another human being and no longer forms ties to the political community is not a human life any longer.

You can’t really change the heart without telling a story.

As human beings, we ought to be vulnerable. We shouldn't try to say that we can be self-sufficient or do everything that's necessary for a good life on our own, because we need other people.

Life is about more than earning a living, and if you're not in the habit of thinking about it, you can end up middle-aged or even older and shocked to realize that your life seems empty.

Business leaders love the humanities because they know that to innovate you need more than rote knowledge. You need a trained imagination.

Choice matters. You might have the opportunity to eat a nutritious diet, though you might choose to eat a lousy diet. What matters is the opportunity.

It’s never the value of water but thirst, it’s never the value of life but death and it’s never about the friendship but trust.

Faeces by any other name would smell as gross

Make sure that today is better than yesterday.

Leaders should interact with everyone in their organization as if the interaction is being recorded and will be used as a training film on how to treat colleagues, coworkers, and customers.

I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.

If you forge a Carl Andre, it's just another Carl Andre. It's not like a Vermeer.

But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.

In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.

I did three tours in Vietnam. I guess a total of about almost two years.

Our history doesn't look at our own violence, the violence in our own past, and we go out and repeat it someplace else.