Not the last time in Western history, the revolutionaries armed themselves with a new religion to steel themselves for greater outrageous.

No civilization, no matter how mighty it may appear to itself, is indestructible.

There can be no understanding without that sympathy which puts us, through the imagination, and (another's) situation.

The bacteriologist, often risking his life to find cures for lethal afflictions, was another kind of imperial hero, as brave in his way as the soldier-explorer.

After 1968 the restored communist regime required all Czech rock musicians to sit a written exam in Marxism Leninism

The dead outnumber the living fourteen to one, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril

I wrote this book because I had formed a strong impression that the people currently living were paying insufficient attention to the dead.

Institutions or products of culture. But they formalize a set of norms.

Well, in this world of basic stereotyping, give a guy a big nose and some weird hair and he is capable of anything.

Nothing links man to man like the frequent passage from hand to hand of a good book.

All that stuff - 'teen idol' - that wasn't me.

Yes, you are,” Chubs agreed. “But you’re our idiot, so be more careful next time.” “Cosigned,” Liam said, hooking his fingers over mine on top of the armrest.

Personal style, be it that of Michelangelo, or that of Tintoretto... has always been that peculiar personal rapport which has developed between an artist and his medium.

A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears; But a comrade stood beside him, while his lifeblood ebbed away.

It's hard to bullshit the ocean. It's not listening, you know what I mean.

There is no such thing as an accident. It is all part of a master plan. Play your role as gracefully as you can and relax.

Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.

All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that's why it takes so long.