Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political economic and social structure.

I think there's a supreme power behind the whole thing an intelligence. Look at all of the instincts of nature both animals and plants the very ingenious ways they survive. If you cut yourself you don't have to think about it.

Three centuries after the appearance of Franklin's 'Courant ' it no longer requires a dystopic imagination to wonder who will have the dubious distinction of publishing America's last genuine newspaper. Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive.

It is not that the child lives in a world of imagination but that the child within us survives and starts into life only at rare moments of recollection which makes us believe and it is not true that as children we were imaginative?

I was a precocious only child and then I went through a fat awkward stage for several years so I learned to fall back on my humor and personality when I was growing up. It's how you survive so I think it was more of a natural progression for me developing into comedy.

People ask me what the most important thing to take on the race is and I always say it's a sense of humor. If you've got nothing but a sense of humor you will survive.

Humor was not important only for me humor was important for this nation for centuries to survive you know.

I'm sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor but I've never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.

Through humor you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter no matter how painful your situation might be you can survive it.

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything even poverty you can survive it.