Philosophical Sayings

If you force Muslims to register, we will all register as Muslims.

We are linked. We are not ranked.

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. We are filled with popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up.

We tend to forget that every revolution or social change is like a tree — it grows from the bottom up, not the top down. However small it may seem to begin, that does not matter because it will grow.

Also, one of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.

The old image of one person with a torch is part of the problem, not the solution. We each need a torch if we are to see where we're going. And together, we create so much more light.

Difference is the source of learning. Maybe we should put it on a t-shirt — 'Difference is a Gift' so that we understand and don’t fear, so we are able to go up to the person most different from us and ask them the question we most fear asking.

Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described - and will be, after our deaths - by each of the family members who believe they know us.

Laughter is the only free emotion—the only one that can't be compelled. We can be made to fear. We can even be made to believe we're in love because, if we're kept dependent and isolated for long enough, we bond in order to survive. But laughter expl…

I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be 'unfeminine' so we suppress it - until it overflows. I could…

True love has no object. It is a state of being.

Disobedience is the vehicle of progress.

Any idiot can make money. Keeping money, very few can do.

History is sympathetic to its authors.

You cannot become what you already are.

We are losing privacy at an alarming rate - we have none left.

My well-discussed 'paranoia' urges me to believe that some tiny segment of the NSA's parsing algorithm is finely tuned to my voice.

Making money is easy. It is. The difficult thing in life is not making it, it's keeping it.

I would describe myself as quite sane and lucid, which is why I'm still alive.

If you have the winning cards, why cheat?