The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.

Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.

Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom.

She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.

There are moments as a teacher when I'm conscious that I'm trotting out the same exact phrase my professor used with me years ago. It's an eerie feeling, as if my old mentor is not just in the room, but in my shoes, using me as his mouthpiece.

When I wake to the gift of yet another sunrise my first thought is to rouse him and say, I owe you the sight of morning.

Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.