Following World War II, the U.S. was the architect of the UN system, and the world financial system, and the Human Rights Declaration, and of course the United Nations is based here in New York City. But, unfortunately, especially in the last decade, the U.S. really has been turning its back on international agreements and the set of agencies and procedures that they create as a means for governing the world.

Science sees the process of evolution from the outside, as one might a train of cars going by, and resolves it into the physical and mechanical elements, without getting any nearer the reason of its going by, or the point of its departure or destination.

Science makes no claim to infallibility; it leaves that claim to be made by theologians.

What a severe yet master artist old Winter is... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds - how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives - and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

The overall quantity of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline slowly.

[Invading Iraq] is not the best way to make a safer world in which the United States would be a responsible partner, but it also goes against the role of law in the United States.