When the mind of man ceases to thrust outward, it begins to contract and wither. - James A. Michener

I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson — the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. [The World Is My Home (1991)]

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries

If a mate protested this arrogant waste of animal life, he growled: “The seas are endless. There’ll never be a lack of whales or anything else,