The changes in thinking about same-sex marriage have come slowly at first and then in rapid course. If such change is possible in this area, is it also possible in the vexed and sordid realm of race relations?
I think that there are certain principles which should guide decision-making for a president. One such principle was that we're all God's children, and every life is precious. To me, that's a moral statement.
I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may live.
The artist never really has any control over the impact of his work. If he starts thinking about the impact of his work, then he becomes a lesser artist.
I think we have to give religion its due. I think we have to respect those for whom religion is important, but equally respect those who can achieve good morality without religion.
Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.
I think what will happen with Donald Trump is there are going to be certain elements of his temperament that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them and corrects them.
I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
The modern mind will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority. Say that the Bible or the Pope says so and it will be dismissed without further examination. But preface your remark with "I think I heard somewhere," or, try but fail to remember the name of some professor who might have said "such-and-such," and it will be immediately accepted as an unshakable fact.
Everyone nowadays lives through too much and thinks through too little: they have a ravenous appetite and colic at the same time so that they keep getting thinner and thinner no matter how much they eat.--Whoever says nowadays, "I have not experienced anything"--is a simpleton.
I think it's important that we run that tension between the way things are, in terms of the way we're governed, and the way we sort of become complacent.