The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope.

When evil acts in the world it always manages to find instruments who believe that what they do is not evil but honorable.

We demand of our political life greater certainty and greater perfection than we demand of our personal life.

America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos.

Science itself is a humanist in the sense that it doesn't discriminate between human beings, but it is also morally neutral. It is no better or worse than the ethos with and for which it is used.

The problem of freedom in America is that of maintaining a competition of ideas, and you do not achieve that by silencing one brand of idea.

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.