"In regards to maan (to seek importance from others), a man will become impudent if he keeps getting insulted up to a point. If he gets maan (importance from others) to a certain level, he grows stronger. And if he gets too much maan [praise], then his desire for it will come to end."

"Did anyone in the White House or the N.S.A or the C.I.A. Consider flying to Hong Kong and treating Mr. Snowden like a human being, offering him a chance to testify before Congress and a fair trial?"

"Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror."

"Your “everybody” probably represents even a smaller proportion of the population than your Rolodex. Psychologists have documented that our typical everybody— to which they refer as the “generalized other”—is usually a collection of about five or six people."

"I was an utterance in absentia. I was a forgotten word, uttered and mislaid long ago. I was the word that existed because there was another word that was my opposite, and without it I was nothing. I gained meaning only by acknowledging that possible other.Nida."

"The way I tell it, he says to Fitzwilliam, you would think that the blow on the head had improved him. That he actually set out to get it. That every monarch needs a blow on the head, from time to time."