For though, in nature, depth and height Are equally held infinite: In poetry, the height we know; 'Tis only infinite below.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.

Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday

The sight of you is good for sore eyes.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

6, 000 people were killed, crippled, and wounded during the War of Independence. The economy was devastated - there was no milk, just milk powder. No eggs, but egg powder. Meat was only once a week.

Writers matter in a society to the extent that we can help that society hear its unvoiced longing, encounter its erased and disregarded selves, break with complacency, numbness, despair.

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?

Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is almost a duty. Laughter is a reward.

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.

This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

Preparing to lose is easy, but losing is hard. Preparing to win is hard, but winning is then easy.

Your gut is always right.

History, history! We fools, what do we know or care.