Why are we willing to accept a new mathematical formula we don't understand as the product of a brilliant mind, while rejecting a new art form we don't understand as the product of a deranged mind?

As WArden Lawes once said of convicts, no man can be called a failure until he has tried something he really likes, and fails at it.

The severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.