It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir.

Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.

Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.

Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.

Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.

I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.

History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme

Poetry is always slightly mysterious, and you wonder what is your relationship to it.

All I know is a door into the dark

I have begun to think of life as a series of ripples widening out from an original center.

All that sadness. All that anger. It is the smoke that gets into your eyes. If you do not blow it away, how can you hope to see?

It's one thing thinking something and another thing knowing it.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

True kindness is the greatest measure of a person.

Your life is like a book you decide what to write on it or erase from it

Had we kept the oil, you wouldn't have ISIS, because they fuel their growth with the oil.

The blackest ink of fate are sure my lot, And when fate writ my name it made a blot.

How do you keep war accountable to the American people when war becomes invisible and virtual?

Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?

What kind of belt do you have?