You speak of justice as if it were a coin in your pocket. Show it to me. If you cannot define it without crumbling, perhaps you were spending a word you had not yet earned.

A good question is a lamp, not a snare. Ask to understand the other person's meaning. If you only ask to win, you will win — and remain unwise.

The unexamined life is not worth living — or so the story goes of my defense. Examination is not self-obsession. It is refusing to sleepwalk through your own choices.

They say I trained with pebbles in my mouth and spoke against the roar of the sea. Whether every tale is literal matters less than the method: make practice harder than the stage, and the stage feels kinder.

The first speeches shake. The tenth shake less. The hundredth still may shake — and still carry truth. Do not wait to feel brave. Brave is what you call the feeling after you have begun.

A refusal need not be cruel to be clear. Respect includes accepting someone else's no without negotiation theater. And offering your own without false guilt.