Animals struggle with each other for food or for leadership, but they do not, like human beings, struggle with each other for thatthat stands for food or leadership: such things as our paper symbols of wealth (money, bonds, titles), badges of rank to wear on our clothes, or low-number license plates, supposed by some people to stand for social precedence. For animals the relationship in which one thing stands for something else does not appear to exist except in very rudimentary form.

The United States, a land of immigrants from every corner of the world, has been strengthened and unified because its newcomers have historically chosen ultimately to forgo their native language for the English language. We have all benefited from the sharing of ideas, of cultures and beliefs, made possible by a common language. We have all enriched each other.

The last thing a scientist would do is cling to a map because he inherited it from his grandfather, or because it was used by George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

I'm going to speak my mind because I have nothing to lose.

The great thing about the United States is our ability to absorb foreign people and make them a part of us.

If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.

Patriotic societies seem to think that the way to educate school children in a democracy is to stage bigger and better flag-saluting.