human beings seem to hold on more tenaciously to a cultural identity that is learned through suffering than to one that has been acquired through pleasure and delight.

I learned to observe the world around me, and to note what I saw

The most intractable problem today is not pollution or technology or war; but the lack of belief that the future is very much in the hands of the individual.

In this country, some people start being miserable about growing old while they are still young.

An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human gift

It is typical, in America, that a person's hometown is not the place where he is living now but is the place he left behind.

Warfare ... is just an invention, older and more widespread than the jury system, but none the less an invention.