After all, the nation is not just an entity. It's a story. It's a story of what's salient, what brought us together, what we are willing to live and die for.

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.

Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful.

One of the worst times to give up on yourself is when you are surrounded by negative circumstances. Your life is too precious to ever allow it to become a prisoner to trials and tribulations.

Implementing best practice is copying yesterday, innovation is inventing tomorrow.

All things as they move toward God are beautiful, and they are ugly as they move away from Him.

The Lord help me to press after God forever

It is most difficult to speak when we are ashamed of being silent.

Doctor says to a man, "You're pregnant!" The man says, "How does a man get pregnant?" The doctor says, "The usual way - a little wine, a little dinner...."

In far from equilibrium conditions, the concept of probability that underlies Boltzmann's order principle is no longer valid if the structures we observe do not correspond to a maximum of complexions

As frustrating as my time in grad school felt, it also helped tremendously because it challenged me to figure out what it was I thought I wanted.

From a genomic perspective, we are all Africans.