Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations.

There is no pure free-market economy.

A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

Words can destroy. What we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other, and it matters.

I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions.

Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse-and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

Truth, which is important to a scholar, has to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.

History is a better guide than good intentions.

What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.

Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.

Extraordinary magic is woven through ordinary life. Look around!

It is often little things that are hardest to stand.

I think we're all kind of alike when you do your first film. You have great hopes, but you don't hope too much.

If there's one thing worse than being really angry for no reason, it's suddenly remembering the reason.

Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net. For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.

Don’t worry," I said. "These men are good. They’re going to heal the world.

They have done their worst, and continued to deny me even the privileges accorded to the common herd . . . but I am sustained by the consciousness of my imputed 'crime' being an honourable one

I am in Boston right now, in fact, to do work at the New England Historical Genealogical Library, where I'm trying to finish up tracing my lineage back to the seventeenth century.

No man can be held throughout the day by what happens throughout the night.

Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.