Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.    
- James Baldwin

Ideas were all-important for the individual whom they impelled into action; but the historian must attach equal importance to the circumstances that gave these ideas their chance. Revolutions are not made without ideas, but they are not made by the intellectuals. Steam is essential for driving a railway engine; but neither a locomotive nor a permanent way can be built out of steam.

- Christopher Hill

In case you are struggling with a bout of indifference:

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

- John Donne, 1624

"The older I get the more I believe that simplicity of life is much more important than wealth. The only point of money is freedom. And yet, in this culture, it seems as if the only point of money is money. It kills the soul if all you believe in is capitalism."
- Andrew Sullivan

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
-Henry Kissinger