For the purposes of life and conduct, and society, a little good sense is surely better than all this genius, and a little good humour than this extreme sensibility.

There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man.

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty.

All knowledge degenerates into probability.

It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause

Beyond speech and mind, Into the river of ever-effulgent LightMy heart dives.Today thousands of doors, closed for millennia, Are opened wide.

I wonder who had the first computer dream, where, and when? I wonder if computers ever dream of humans.

Maybe that was what growing up was, understanding where the real magic lived in this world. Inside our very own hearts.

You don't just deal with adversity. You use it to propel you forward.

[Gilda Radner] died in '89, and I got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000. I've just passed the five-year mark and I'm now what you call - well, it's called complete remission, but I'm cured. I'm fine.

It's 2006, why are they still using the index finger?

I think that all my books are political, I think that I have a political body of work. I am essentially a political woman, but above all I am a poet. I am a poetess.

I think that has a lot of dangers, as does government surveillance, which is way too high.

A warrior accepts defeat. He does not treat it as a matter of indifference nor does he try to make a victory of it.

My spirituality has always been linked to my feminism. Feminism is about challenging unequal power structures.