Dogma is invariably wrong, as knowledge is always in a state of transition.

Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.

Knowledge is awareness, and to it are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wasteland to the spirit.

Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'. I believe what the old Quaker said, 'Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry.

I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.

Neither drink [coffee or tea] was known in Frankish lands, but seated in the coffeehouses, I drank of each at various times, twirling my moustache and listening with attention to that headier draught, the wine of the intellect, that sweet and bitter juice distilled from the vine of thought and the tree of man's experience.

To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.