“Don’t join the queue of ignorant people who do not know that their time flies away into vanity daily. Don’t be a part of the lazy lot who cannot discipline themselves in solitude to convert their time into products or added value.”

“The world does not know how to concentrate on working.”

“The recession and regression of any society are always an indication of how poorly the citizens of that country understand the value of time.”

“This ignorance of what to do with time is the number one reason why people get bored so easily when alone with nothing to do.”

“This generation does not understand the wealth of time. No wonder there are only a few superstars and great men emerging from this generation.”

“If we could be humble enough to submit our passions, sentiments and even weaknesses to God Almighty, he would successfully convert them to something positive that would eventually glorify Him.”

“You would suffer for many things in life and misplaced priority is one of them.”

“I spend my day in one of three fundamental positions: sitting down, laying down or standing up. And if I’m at all interested in making any progress in life, I might take a moment and consider the fact that two-thirds of these begin and end in the same place.”

“Yes, now you know. Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

“Progress had not invaded, science had not enlightened, the little hamlet of Pieuvrot, in Brittany. They were a simple, ignorant, superstitious set who lived there, and the luxuries of civilization were known to them as little as its learning. They toiled hard all the week on the ungrateful soil that yielded them but a bare subsistence in return; they went regularly to mass in the little rock-set chapel on Sundays and saint’s days; believed implicitly all that monsieur le cure said to them, and many things which he did not say; and they took all the unknown, not as magnificent but as diabolical”

“Looking at Great-Great Grandpa Baldwin’s photograph, I think to myself: You’ve finally done it. It took four generations, but you’ve finally goddamned done it. Gotten that war against reason and uppity secularists you always wanted. Gotten even for the Scopes trial, which they say was one of many burrs under your saddle until your last breath. Well, rejoice, old man, because your tribes have gathered around America’s oldest magical hairball of ignorance and superstition, Christian fundamentalism, and their numbers have enabled them to suck so much oxygen out of the political atmosphere that they are now acknowledged as a mainstream force in politics. Episcopalians, Jews, and affluent suburban Methodists and Catholics, they are all now scratching their heads, sweating, and swearing loudly that this pack of lower-class zealots cannot possibly represent the mainstream–not the mainstream they learned about in their fancy sociology classes or were so comfortably reassured about by media commentators who were people like themselves. Goodnight, Grandpa Baldwin. I’ll toast you from hell.”

“A man who believes everything can be explained by science is just as ignorant as someone who believes everything can be explained by religion.”

“Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.”

“However modest one may be in one’s demand for intellectual cleanliness, one cannot help feeling, when coming into contact with the New Testament, a kind of inexpressible discomfiture: for the unchecked impudence with which the least qualified want to raise their voice on the greatest problems, and even claim to be judges of things, surpasses all measure. The shameless levity with which the most intractable problems (life, world, God, purpose of life) are spoken of, as if they were not problems at all but simply things that these little bigots KNEW!”

“We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence and start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors.”