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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.

He was the epitome of acting out to get attention. I think everyone acknowledged his jokes as a kind of defense mechanism. ('Humor? That's my lizard tail. You can look at that while I run away,' he'd once said.)

And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other.

And love, with a cursive capital 'L,' is merely sleight of hand, doled out by genetic edict in order to keep DNA flowing. It's all genetics. And beyond that, it's all just zeros and ones. But friendship, with an unpretentious lowercase 'f,' is real and right and valuable.

Children know precious little, but that profound ignorance comes from profound innocence. People really mean to say that innocence is bliss. And bliss is short-lived.

For in a warm climate no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference.

There is a philosophical, or metaphysical position that can be taken–maybe its a scientific hypothesis–that the past cannot in fact exist. Everything that can possibly exist exists now. Things now may be expressive of some conceivable or describable past state of affairs, yes:but that's different from saying this this former state actually somehow exists in the form of "the past". Even in our memory[...]there is no past:no scenes preserved with all their sights and sounds. Merely fleeting states of mind, myriad points assembled for a moment to make a new picture (but "picture" is wrong too, too full, too fixed) of what we think are former states of things: things that once were, or may have been the case.

Lately Marge's memory had grown weak, which is to say that it no longer contained the past time on deposit there, it was not strong enough to keep shut up the moments, the mornings and evenings, of her long life, its seals broke, and her memories ran together mingling, indistinguishable from the present. Her memory had grown incontinent with age.

Just as a lamp waved in darkness creates a figure of light in the air, which remains for as long as the lamp repeats its motion exactly, so the universe retains its shape by repetition: the universe is Time's body. And how will we perceive this body? And how operate on it? Not by the means we perceive extension, relation, color, form — the qualities of Space. … No: but by the means we perceive duration and repetition and change: by Memory.

"Love is a myth", Grandfather Trout said. "Like summer."

"What?"

"In winter," Grandfather Trout said, "summer is a myth. A report, a rumor. Not to be believed in. Get it? Love is a myth. So is summer."

"You see, you are an optimist and live on hope. I am a pessimist and live on experience."

[A]nd the traffic noise that boomed in through the window was another reminder of what his spirit knew, that he was but a grain of sand in someone else's desert.