Humans are wired to feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and contingency, and so we gravitate to a position after a short time even if we have no new information.

The notion that better engineering can solve all our problems is rooted in an ignorance of non-linear systems and selective/wishful thinking.

Once a citizen receives a direct payment from the state, the state has purchased their complicity

So now that the illusion of infinite growth is being exposed, the corresponding ballooning entitlements that enticed the larger public to become complicit in the illusion are becoming unglued.

Reality, unlike perception, cannot be changed by propaganda.

I have really good instincts about friends.

Thank Heaven! The crisis /The danger is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last /, and the fever called ''Living'' is conquered at last.

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

Our enemies believed America was weak and materialistic, that we would splinter in fear and selfishness. They were as wrong as they are evil.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is meant to be handled, while the user of the tool can only have an approximate idea.

Is it...dead?" asked Tom, his voice all quivery with fright. "A town just ran over him," said Hester. "I shouldn't think he's very well.

You will be safest in the middle.

Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.

Anytime someone tells me that I can't do something, I want to do it more.