The power of prayer and faith can heal and bring happiness. The real tragedy is that the people that are helped by this don't realize that this power is really coming from within.

There's no point in killing an opponent... There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.

The world is a globe — the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.

One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking.

What was the point of education, he thought, if people went out afterward and used it?

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘If only I’d…’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it.