A weapon kills people and makes people in cities dominated by fear. But if you turn it into an instrument, it's like social gold. It brings people together and you build trust.

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

My mother had abandoned the family, so grandmother raised me. And she was instrumental in that she taught me that the world is a glorious place. She taught me to embrace humanity. And she'd say there's never an excuse for joy. And to be thankful.

I have always been interested - indeed, waylaid - by the leading edges of technology, even during my Ph.D. years when I pioneered (but did not publish) agarose gel electrophoresis for RNA fractionation. Also, much later, I was instrumental in showing that Green Fluorescent Protein and RNAi could be made to work in mammalian cells.

But I think that any young drummer starting out today should get himself a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument that he wants to play.

I've always been a music fan. I played trumpet. When I was in 4th grade, we were getting demos from the music teacher about different instruments we could play, and I said I wanted to play the trumpet right away. It was easy: it just had three valves.

When you have a sense of yourself in space, in your movement, in your muscles, you can express yourself through your body, your instrument. You learn so much about who you are and what your truth is.

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.

Just as the lunar landings inspired many young people to consider careers in space and related fields, the solution of the challenging instrumentation problems presented in space science can inspire young people to push beyond the current state of the art.

The method of political science is the interpretation of life; its instrument is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions.

And it's sad because it's like a surprise to people - almost an anomaly - when artists are actually refined and trained on an instrument. That's the last thing people think about.

Here in New Orleans, what a lot of the musical families do - and this is a romantic concept on my part - is they teach their kids to tap dance first. Then after tap dance, you learn piano, and after piano, you get to pick between all the instruments that are out there.

Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.

Dub has been a big influence in terms of production. It's inspired so many people and so much music - in terms of music where mixing desk was the instrument. Central to that is the echo chamber, and I think there's a little bit of a romantic thing there.

I love the ukulele. It's got a beautiful, melodic tone to it. There's something innocent and romantic, and it's just a grand instrument to play.

Religion was used as an ideology, as a system of control. When they forced the veil upon women, they were using it as an instrument of control in the same way that in Mao's China people were wearing Mao jackets and women were not supposed to wear any makeup.

In 1986, Pakistan got the blasphemy law. So, while we had just two cases of blasphemy before that year, now we have thousands. It shows that one should be careful while bringing religion into legislation, because the law itself can become an instrument of persecution.

Discipline may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a 'physics' or 'anatomy' of power, a technology.

When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

Poetry is - it's an art form, but, to me, it's also a weapon, it's also an instrument. It's the ability to make ideas that have been known, felt and said. And that's a real, I think, type of duty for the poet.

Peace can be promoted by the limitation of arms and by the creation of the instrumentality for peaceful settlement of controversies. But it will become a reality only through self-restraint and active effort in friendliness and helpfulness.