But you can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves. ("The North")

The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.

The most agonising thing is to drop doubt into a man about his being a reality, three-dimensional - and not some other kind of reality.

You are afraid of it because it is stronger than you you hate it because you are afraid of it you love it because you cannot subdue it to your will. Only the unsubduable can be loved.

A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.

Happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith

If human foolishness had been as carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious.

You can only love something that refuses to be mastered.

Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers are invariably children.

Let my notes, like the most sensitive seismograph, record the curve of even the most insignificant vibrations of my brain: for it is precisely such vibrations that are sometimes the forewarning of...

The secret of success lies in the perfection of one’s gift and working frantically towards God’s given potential

There is nowhere morning does not go.

The Greatest loss in life is the loss of a mother: The second greatest, the loss of Self.

If God exists at all, it exists in the pants of a man and woman, not otherwise

You can’t believe something just because someone else desperately wants you to.

The gospel chargeth us with piety towards God, and justice and charity to men, and temperance and chastity in reference to ourselves.

My policy is I will help any policymaker who asks, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat.

Mr. Stevenson has a degree alright-a PhD from the Acheson College of Cowardly Communist Containment.

What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?

You can never trust what you read.