Both the Freudian and the Platonic metaphors emphasize the considerable independence of and tension among the constituent parts of the psyche, a point that characterizes the human condition.

I don't know the answer. Maybe no one knows. Maybe when you grow up, you'll be the first to find out.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.