...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

Isn't joyful or painful this pain in which I rejoice

Love is waiting for you lifting to hand, open your heart, and accept it.

A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows.

I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. And I definitely can’t un-feel a feeling.

I can write a song in about an hour if it's a simple country song.

I do it as a therapy. I do it as something to keep me alive. We all need a little discipline. Exercise is my discipline.

When you have children, you realise you can't plan anything. There's no Plan A, no Plan B. Life will happen and you will go with it.

Think of one person who you are tempted for any reason to withhold love from, and pray for their happiness. In that moment your pain will stop.

You load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store.

When one encounters truth, one encounters the God whose truth it is.