If the history of the western moral imagination is the story of an enduring and unending revolt against human cruelty, there are few more consequential figures than Raphael Lemkin - and few whose achievements have been more ignored by the general public. It was he who coined the word 'genocide.' He was also its victim.

I felt the pressure of imagination against the doors of my mind was so great that they were going to burst.

No breed of cats in its proper condition can by any stretch of the imagination be thought of as even slightly ungraceful - a record against which must be pitted the depressing spectacle of impossibly flattened bulldogs, grotesquely elongated dachshunds, hideously shapeless and shaggy Airedales, and the like.

Out with stereotypes, feminism proclaims. But stereotypes are the west's stunning sexual personae, the vehicles of art's assault against nature. The moment there is imagination, there is myth.

The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination.

I've spent my life butting my head against other people's lack of imagination.

The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

To me, sadness and humor aren't disrelated and humor is the best tool I've had against the sadness in my life.

Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

Hateful words stand no chance against self-worth and a little of humor.

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.

A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

I may be what my enemies desire me to be, yet never an accusation are they able to hurl against me which makes me blush or lower my forehead; and I hope that God will be merciful enough with me, to prevent me from committing one of those faults which would involve my family.

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.

I hope to stop discrimination against young transgender people.

If your theory is found to be against the second law of theromodynamics, I give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it; let us fight against destiny, even though without hope of victory.

Hope is a necessity for normal life and the major weapon against the suicide impulse.

I'm a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won't.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.