Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions.

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.

It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience!

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore.

Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies.

Individuality is the aim of political liberty.

Death is appalling to those of the most iron nerves, when it comes quietly and in the stillness and solitude of night.

The press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.

Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannogt congeal in winter.

A soul,--a spark of the never-dying flame that separates man from all the other beings of earth.

The Fourth Crown Princess of the blue Cresent Islands had sixteen rituals to observe from the moment of waking to when she broke her fast.

Ponder the affirmative.

My mother gets all mad at me if I stay in a hotel. I'm 31-years-old, and I don't want to sleep on a sleeping bag down in the basement. It's humiliating.

Would you live with ease, Do what you ought, and not what you please.

I have to make this love affair believable enough. It's very European.

Laws of nature don't know they are "fixed." That's a human pattern seeking description that comes out of our need to survive. It isn't an objective description of anything.

Many years ago I was part of a public health movement that raised concerns about the mercury in vaccines and about the heavy dose that infants get - used to. They don't anymore.

When you live your life in different ways, it makes people around you become uncomfortable. So deal with it. They don't know what you are going to do.

I want to caution that we must not confuse patriotism with blind endorsement of bad policies.

At Harvard, I got to meet and have dinner with Jamaica Kincaid. Just to have conversations with professors was absolutely amazing.