“Alexander: How the world must have been changing while I was holding it still. tnt in love.”

“Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

“You've got to have something to eat, and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.”

“There are those who stay at home and those who go away, and it has always been so. Everyone can choose for himself, but he must choose while there is still time and never change his mind.”

“Some women are meant to change the world, while others are meant to hold it together. And then there are those of us who simply don't want to be in it, because we know no matter how much we struggle, we can't comfortably fit.”

“I am a sort of revolutionary. I have a strange ambition, though. I don’t want any statues. What I want is for the world to work. I want to create a context in which government, education, and families are nurturing. I want to en­able, to empower, the institutions of man. Social transformation doesn’t argue against social change. Radicalism and resistance produce obvious values. But after a while, social change chases its own tail. Social change just produces social change. After most ordinary revolutions, after most social change, the world still doesn’t work. For the world to work you must have social transformation, which creates the space for effective social change.”

“The landscape has been so totally changed, the ways of thinking have been so deeply affected, that it is very hard to get hold of what it was like before… It is very hard to realize how total a change in outlook Isaac Newton has produced.”

“Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.”

“Do we, holding that the gods exist,
deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams
and lies, while random careless chance and
change alone control the world?”

“I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don't you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.”