WIST

The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
“Real Time With Bill Maher” (4 Feb 2011)

And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
I’ll state my case of which I’m certain.
I’ve lived a life that’s full, I traveled each and ev’ry highway,
And more, much more than this: I did it my way.

Paul Anka (b. 1941) Canadian-American singer, songwriter, actor
“My Way” (1969)
Anka adapted this song for Frank Sinatra from the French "Comme D’Habitude" by Claude François and Jacques Revaux.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish economist
The Wealth of Nations, 1.8 (1776)

That Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and nonbelievers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.

Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947) – majority opinion

If things are ever to move upward, someone must be ready to take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try nonresistance as the saint is always willing can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. When they do succeed, they are far more powerfully successful than force or worldy prudence. Force destroys enemies; and the best that can be said of prudence is that it keeps what we already have in safety. But nonresistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends; and charity regenerates its objects.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)