Peter Flom is a prolific writer on Quora, and has recently started a blog there, titled Random Thoughts. He recently made a post that I thought was great, but since I'm really not a fan of Quora as a blogging platform, I asked his permission to reprint it here for my readers.

Obviously, the beliefs expressed about what "the 25 best things ever said" consists of are Peter's, not mine, as are the messages conveyed thereby. Nevertheless, I like Peter; we seem to see eye-to-eye on a lot.

The 25 best things ever said

Not in any particular order, except the last one, which is my favorite.

25) If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) -- I have seen this attributed to Truman, as well.

24) The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) -- quoting or paraphrasing John Locke

23) I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

22) To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

21) When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
-- Desiderius Erasmus (1465-1536)

20) It is impossible

Selma teaches us, too, that action requires that we shed our cynicism. For when it comes to the pursuit of justice, we can afford neither complacency nor despair.

Just this week, I was asked whether I thought the Department of Justice's Ferguson report shows that, with respect to race, little has changed in this country. I understand the question, for the report's narrative was woefully familiar. It evoked the kind of abuse and disregard for citizens that spawned the Civil Rights Movement. But I rejected the notion that nothing's changed. What happened in Ferguson may not be unique, but it's no longer endemic, or sanctioned by law and custom; and before the Civil Rights Movement, it most surely was.

We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, or that racial division is inherent to America. If you think nothing's changed in the past fifty years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the Fifties. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing's changed. Ask your gay friend if it's easier to be out and proud in America now than it was thirty years ago. To deny this progress -- our progress -- would be to rob us of our own agency; our responsibility to do what we can to make America better.

Of course, a more common mistake is to suggest that racism is banished, that the work that drew men and women to Selma is complete, and that whatever racial tensions remain are a consequence of those seeking to play the "race card" for