Even very recently, the elders could say: 'You know, I have been young and you never have been old.' But today's young people can reply: 'You never have been young in the world I am young in, and you never can be.' ... the older generation will never see repeated in the lives of young people their own unprecedented experience of sequentially emerging change. This break between generations is wholly new: it is planetary and universal.

For the human species to evolve, the conversation must deepen.

The contempt for law and the contempt for the human consequences of lawbreaking go from the bottom to the top of American society.

Between friends there is no bribery. ... the relationship of friends is intrinsically fair and equal. Neither feels stronger or more clever or more beautiful than the other.

The problem with America today is that too many people know too much about not enough.

Mothers are a biological necessity; fathers are a social invention

When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.