If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn't sufficiently occupied.

It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable.

The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads.

The measure of a civilization is in the courage, not of its soldiers, but of its bystanders.

... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.

We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.

Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

Man has always seen himself the peak of creation. The part of the universe that thinks. The purpose for it all. It's no doubt a gratifying view, but the universe may have a different opinion.

Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.

Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it?

The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.

I don't understand women at all. Like how a women can pour boiling hot wax onto their upper thigh, then rip the hair out by the root... and still be afraid of a spider.

If I'm more prepared, the success will fall on me; if not, it will fall on someone else, and I'm okay with that.

A life filled with silly social drama and gossip indicates that a person is disconnected from purpose and lacking meaningful goals. People on a path of purpose don't have time for drama.

Langdon turned to Sophie. "Who is that? What... happened?" Teabing hobbled over. "You were rescued by a knight brandishing an Excalibur made by Acme Orthopedic.

I did not like this feeling of having feelings.

There is a limit to enjoyment, though the sources of wealth be boundlessAnd the choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

What can we do about God, who makes and then breaks every god-forsaken, beautiful day?

You’re alive. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything.

Everything is design. Everything!

The atom cannot disobey the law. Whether it is the mental or the physical atom, it must obey the law. "What is the use of [external restraint]?"