I didn't expect to be dropped by England.
I sense a learning: that much dumber people than you end up in charge.
The problem with learning the truth about things is that you lose the confidence that comes from being dumb.
Get it out of your head that wine’s just a drink. Real wine is like a missing human gene. It vaccinates you against mundanity, against bad life.
Don’t be lookin up at no sky for help. Look down here, at us twisted dreamers.
If your ethical model defeats you, change the model.
And here I'm struck by an epiphany so monstrous in its scale, so blinding in its effect that I feel my skin has turned inside out under the sun, that my innards possess magnetic qualities able to call vast fortunes together. And it's this: anything can happen if I want it to.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I've been to North Africa many times.
I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it [fanaticism] could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation.
Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.