Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism; the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

The growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement.

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

The question is not how to get good people to rule; THE QUESTION IS: HOW TO STOP THE POWERFUL from doing as much damage as they can to us.

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.

The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.

Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.

A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.

I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth

The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.

Before falling to the ground, the rain has touched the sky. (Avant de tomber au sol, La pluie a touché le ciel)

Washington is a place where men praise courage and act on elaborate personal cost-benefit calculations.

I'm a horrible romantic!

A very good side playing at the sort of level we are aspiring to.

Try not to do too many things at once. Know what you want, the number one thing today and tomorrow. Persevere and get it done.

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.

My fear is if I expose myself, not so much that I'll be hurt, but that the reaction will be "Is that all there is? Is that the entirety of you? Because it's boring."

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That's how I see my voice.

Anyone in the United States today who isn't paranoid must be crazy.

I'm from Chicago, so the Chicago working-class poets still mean a great deal to me.