Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome... (but not before it created an Empire that changed the world -EM).

If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgement.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

One bright morning when my work is over I will fly away home.

lips all crude scarlet, and eyes as absurdly big and round as a child's good-by kiss.

To be rich is not the end, but only a change, of worries.

Man builds no structure which outlives a book.

Enthusiasm is contagious, and the person who has it, under control, is generally welcome in any group of people.

For me, the dead remain dead. If I couldn't believe that, I don't think I could go on living.

In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.

There are many ways of casting molecular spells using DNA. What we really want to do in the end is learn how to program self-assembly so that we can build anything.

I can't promise that every child with learning differences will become a novelist, but I do think all children can become lifelong readers.

Excellence is a process that should occupy all our days.