"One is hard pressed to think of universal customs that man has successfully established on earth. There is one, however, of which he can boast the universal adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numerals to record numbers. In this we perhaps have man's unique worldwide victory of an idea."

“If my former self and my current self met for coffee, they'd get along OK, but they'd both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.””

Source : A. J. Jacobs (2008). “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

“I don't think ordinary things are very interesting, so I try to imagine a world that is less ordinary.”

Source : Scholastic Interview, www.scholastic.com. November 10, 2004.

“The only path by which another person can upset you is through your own thought.”

“The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later.”

“I wasn't somebody who raised his finger and then talked in a hushed voice. I always shouted.”

“Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity.”

“I'm trying to do the best I can. I'm not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.”

“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.”

Source : "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude". Book by Etienne de La Boetie, 1576.