It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.
You can't hurt me without my permission.
Those who know how to think need no teachers.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.
Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless or corrupt. And a citizen who barters with such a state shares in its corruption and lawlessness.
My faith is brightest in the midst of impenetrable darkness.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
When we play music we describe the echo the tableau of natural forms, their shapes and arrangements, as uncovered by the composer's imagination, which yet must be filtered through our own. There is no other way. And in acknowledging this tableau, this revelation, we must "hesitate", we must doubt, as the composer doubted, for no valid creation can issue unscarred by doubt, by that vast flux of wonder which precedes the construction of being.
Maybe I want to be tied down and forced to admit it
As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems. They are riddled by ignorance, perverse incentives, incompetence and self-serving.
I've always loved the pomp and circumstance of dressing up; the pagenatry and all of the glamour of Hollywood.