The question now is: Can we understand our stupidity? This is a test of intellect, not of character.

The question now is: Can we understand our stupidity? This is a test of intellect, not of character.

I've never been an intellectual but I have this look.

I've never been an intellectual but I have this look.

Sundays, quiet islands on the tossing seas of life.

Sundays, quiet islands on the tossing seas of life.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, read more

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.

It takes a kind of shabby arrogance to survive in our time, and a fairly romantic nature to want to.

It takes a kind of shabby arrogance to survive in our time, and a fairly romantic nature to want to.

I don't want anything I don't deserve, [but] if they offer me more money, I'm not stupid.

I don't want anything I don't deserve, [but] if they offer me more money, I'm not stupid.

I gave my life for freedom --this I know: For those who bade me fight had told me so.

I gave my life for freedom --this I know: For those who bade me fight had told me so.

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and read more

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

It can be helpful simply to make a written or mental list of the things you do each day. Then read more

It can be helpful simply to make a written or mental list of the things you do each day. Then give yourself a mental credit for each of them, however small. This will help you focus on what you have done instead of what you haven't gotten around to do. It may sound simplistic, but it works.