The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what they think it is.

Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. A man unwilling to take risk is doomed never to learn, never to grow, never to live.

If you surrender, you have already lost. If you refuse to give up, though, no matter the odds against you, at least you have succeeded in trying.

No one has yet determined the power of the human species . . . what it may perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Prayer is hard work. We may neglect it because we're too tired, too busy, or too distracted to put into prayer the effort required.

One of the first things you ever learn as a stand-up is don't show fear.

Blood is the god of war's rich livery.

Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.

I can find something between sight and hearing and I can produce a fugue in colors as Bach has done in music.

My wife sent me a Valentine card that said, "Take my heart, take my lips, take my soul." That's just like her. She kept the good parts for herself.

Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we were never able to do.

I'm dubious about having Social Security put into the stock market. I think that we have gotten very far away from the idea that there's something sacrosanct about retirement investments.

White House operatives went to great lengths to show Obama shifting focus from wars abroad to domestic issues at home.