We are each but a quarter note in a grand symphony.
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
I am not my own friend. Time cuts me in two.
What is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.
Even if that is so, there will remain A word wakened by lips that perish, A tireless messenger who runs and runs Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies, And calls out, protests, screams.
Irony is the glory of slaves.
On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
A will to be unkind is like a sickness. It can be healed or driven out. But to be unkind because you are thoughtless is the worst kind of blindness: difficult to cure, because you cannot see the fault even as you commit it.
No one individual can tell the truth.
The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we’ve changed this country before.
They would be subject to no one, neither to lawful ruler nor to the reign of law, but would be altogether and absolutely free. That is the way they got their tyrants, for either servitude or freedom, when it goes to extremes, is an utter bane, while either in due measure is altogether a boon.