Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable.

But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.

You cannot do only one thing.

(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)

No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable

People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

The only thing we can really count on in this uncertain world is human unreliability itself.

A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.

I'm pretty lost in becoming all this frost. Bitter, like Winter. Strung-out like a string of pearls.

Why do you have to be the same as the others? ...Most of them are stupid.

What if Shakespeare had had a test audience for Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet?

I worked at a daycare for a couple of years going through high school and college. I did youth sports camps. I ran all the camps through my college.

I'm quite introverted but I'm not shy.

You cannot apply your high standards to a country [Egypt] burdened with decades of autocratic rule. Our democracy is still in its infancy.

Our practice is not to clear up the mystery. It is to make the mystery clear.

No matter how bad your life gets, you can always turn it around.

Freedom requires us to view people as wanting the opportunity to earn their success.