A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.
Other
Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Jimmy Baldwin was the creator of contemporary American speech even before Americans could dig that. He created it so we could speak to each other at unimaginable intensities of feeling, so we could make sense to each other at yet higher and higher tempos.
The price we are willing to pay for safety cannot be infinite. It is distasteful to put a price on human life, but the more we spend on safety, the less we will have for our other goals.
I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times – and this, I think, is a sense you develop – I can tell that the line wants to continue.
Things explain each other, not themselves.
I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.
Sound principles and eternal truths need to be frequently repeated so that we do not forget their application nor become dissuaded by other arguments.
The self has the characteristic that it is an object to itself, and that characteristic distinguishes it from other objects and from the body.