The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination.

I came from a very intellectual neighborhood. When we played cowboys and Indians as kids, I had to be Gandhi.

I cut my own hair. I got sick of barbers because they talk too much. And too much of their talk was about my hair coming out.

As it is more blessed to receive, so it must be more blessed to receive than to give back.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

I heard someone say he [Carl Sandburg] was the kind of writer who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by being translated into another language.