The great thing about marriage is that it creates trust, the most precious of things.

Change the way you think, and you are halfway to changing the world.

The violent have been victorious for most of history because they kindled the fear with which everyone is born.

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.

The Renaissance… was based on a new idea of the importance of the individual. But this was a fragile foundation, because individuals depended on constant applause and admiration to sustain them. There is a shortage of applause in the world, and there is not enough respect to go around.

Forks and spoons have probably done more to reconcile people who cannot agree than guns and bombs ever did

Never before have humans been so ambitious, have they thought that they could be much more than their parents were.