Friendship

The knife from the enemy leaves only a scar while the knife of a friend can be mortal.

Friendship

A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself

Friendship

Material things can't make the soul whole. The only the love, trust, and loyalty of friends can do that.

Friendship

Love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes.

Friendship

True friends not only protect you from others when something goes bad, but from yourself when you try to take blame.

Friendship

A true friend wants nothing more from you than the pleasure of your company.

Friendship

A true friend thinks of you when all others are thinking of themselves.

Friendship

The trick is not to die for a friend, but to find a friend worth dying for.

Friendship

People say true friends must always hold hands. But true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there.

Friendship

Happiness comes from the ones I love, but it's strength that comes from the ones who love me.

Friendship

A true friend is someone who makes us do what we can.

Friendship

There isn't much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren't really living without it.

Friendship

When someone allows you to bear his burdens, you have found deep friendship.

Friendship

Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things.

Friendship

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.

Friendship

A real friend is someone who would feel loss if you jumped on a train, or in front of one.

Patriotism

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Education

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

Friendship

Every man should have a fair-sized cemetary in which to bury the faults of his friends.

Miscellanious

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

Philosophy

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Marriage

Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway.

God & Religion

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

Knowledge

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Virtue

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

Philosophy

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Truth

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.

Philosophy

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.

Proverbs

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

Philosophy

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

God & Religion

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

Anger

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Education

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Friendship

What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies.

Friendship

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

Friendship

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

Friendship

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

God & Religion

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

Government

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Philosophy

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

Philosophy

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Philosophy

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Right & Wrong

All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.

Truth

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

Character

And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

God & Religion

To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.

God & Religion

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.

Knowledge

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

Life & Death

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.

Philosophy

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

Philosophy

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Science & Technology

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), but "That's funny...".

Friendship

A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view.

Friendship

Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.

Philosophy

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.

Friendship

This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joy, and cutteth griefs in half.

Freedom & Liberty

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.

Love

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

Humor

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.

Philosophy

No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.

Love

Every instance of heartbreak can teach us powerful lessons about creating the kind of love we really want.

Freedom & Liberty

Never could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty.

Philosophy

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

God & Religion

Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

Philosophy

Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.

Philosophy

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

America

I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.

Government

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government and I will lead it as party of government.

Government

It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.

Terrorism

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.

Terrorism

There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.

Terrorism

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

Friendship

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

Wall Street Protests

You have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs. That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here.

Happiness

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

Philosophy

All know the way; few actually walk it.

Knowledge

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

Philosophy

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

Philosophy

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Politics

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

Success

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Computers

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

Friendship

False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.

Freedom & Liberty

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient...The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

Privacy

The makers of our constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of the rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

Friendship

I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.

Friendship

The finest kind of friendship is between two people who excpect a great deal of each other, but never ask it.

Humor

By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me.

Humor

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.

Love

We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure--full of surprises. Some good. Some bad.

Education

Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.

Time

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

Money & Economics

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

Right & Wrong

The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.

Success

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

Love

True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.

Friendship

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

Philosophy

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.

God & Religion

God, please save me from your followers!

Fear

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

Freedom & Liberty

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Good & Evil

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.

Good & Evil

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.

Good & Evil

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Miscellanious

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

Philosophy

I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.

Friendship

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Life & Death

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Time

You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.

Politics

An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.

God & Religion

If God is so powerful, can He make a rock that is so heavy that He Himself can't lift it?

Leadership

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.

Leadership

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.

Adversity

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Proverbs

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.

Proverbs

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

America

To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.

America

The United States stands at the pinnacle of world power. This is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.

America

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

Character

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds? Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose we would have to discuss terms, of course. Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds? Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?! Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

God & Religion

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Government

Democracy is the best form of the worst type of government.

Government

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.

History

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

Humor

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Humor

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Life & Death

It so often happens that, when men are convinced that they have to die, a desire to bear themselves well and to leave life?s stage with dignity conquers all other sensations.

Philosophy

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

Philosophy

If you are going through hell, keep going.

Philosophy

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Philosophy

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Philosophy

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Politics

There is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies -- and that is to fight without them.

Politics

I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic

Success

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Truth

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Truth

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Truth

Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.

Virtue

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

Virtue

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

War

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

War

We have before us an ordeal of the most grevous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

War

Side by side... the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue...mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them...gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians -- upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.

War

We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.

Friendship

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

War

In time of war the law falls silent.

America

100 years out, the only things we leave behind that will matter are the environment and Constitutional legitimacy.

America

And now I dream of an even greater America than the one [my grandparents] viewed from a ship's railing. An America where we live in peace and harmony, not just amongst ourselves, but with our neighbors around the world. I can see such a place. To me, it's just over the next hill. And I guess when you get right down to it, I'm an old soldier and I always believe in taking the next hill. I believe we can get that; that together, we can create a world in which all our children are able to fulfill the promise of their own destiny. We can do this. We must do this. For it is our duty, our honor and our country.

Government

The sad fact is that two years after President Bush coined the term 'axis of evil,' we've got a new axis of evil. It's one our president himself has created. It's an axis of fiscal policies which threaten our future, foreign policies that threaten our security, and domestic policies that put families dead last. That's the axis of evil I want to attack and destroy.

Leadership

Harry Truman used to say the buck stops here. [The Bush] White House doesn't even know where the buck is!

Patriotism

I think the height of patriotism is to speak out. Even in wartime in a democracy, you need a democracy. You need people with the courage to stand up and voice their opposition without being labeled unpatriotic. I've always thought that the height of loyalty is to ask questions and help sort things out.

Patriotism

Nothing is more American; nothing is more patriotic than speaking out, questioning authority and holding your leaders accountable.

Freedom & Liberty

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

God & Religion

Faith is believing in what you know isn't true.

Science & Technology

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Leadership

Leaders who win the respect of others are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver.

Freedom & Liberty

Just as war is freedom's cost, disagreement is freedom's privilege.

Life & Death

I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.

Wisdom

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

Friendship

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.

Education

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Knowledge

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Right & Wrong

To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

Friendship

There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.

Success

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Friendship

But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Computers

If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.

Love

I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

Friendship

Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.

Philosophy

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

Philosophy

In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.

Education

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

God & Religion

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.

Character

The eyes are the windows to the soul; if you look into them long enough, one's true self is revealed.

Philosophy

The graveyards are full of indispensable men.

Politics

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

Success

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.

Love

Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out a candle, and blows in a fire.

Philosophy

I think, therefore I am.

Wisdom

It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

Life & Death

He would make a lovely corpse.

Friendship

It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter.

Friendship

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own.

Truth

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics

Philosophy

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 the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of 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.

Privacy

The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.

Freedom & Liberty

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

Freedom & Liberty

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of the people.

Power

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Philosophy

He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave.

Miscellanious

A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.

Philosophy

People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.

Success

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Work

There is no substitute for hard work.

War

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine of force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.

Character

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

Education

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Freedom & Liberty

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

God & Religion

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.

God & Religion

It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion.

God & Religion

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

God & Religion

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.

God & Religion

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

God & Religion

I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.

Good & Evil

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Happiness

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Knowledge

Never memorize what you can look up.

Knowledge

Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Philosophy

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Politics

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

Success

If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

Success

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.

America

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels--men and women who dare to disssent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

America

Only Americans can hurt America.

Government

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Peace

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

Philosophy

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Philosophy

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Philosophy

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Friendship

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Philosophy

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Philosophy

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

Love

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.

Philosophy

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

Friendship

It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.

God & Religion

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

War

It was kind of a culinary "up yours."

Wisdom

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

Knowledge

We receive as friendly that which agrees with [us], we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.

Money & Economics

Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers (six if one went to Harvard).

Humor

I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.

Humor

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.

Freedom & Liberty

The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood. The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that person's liberty. Are you free?

Philosophy

Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.

Politics

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

Anger

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

Freedom & Liberty

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Friendship

'Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.

Philosophy

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Philosophy

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.

Philosophy

I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Truth

Half a truth is often a great lie.

Virtue

Honour, worthily obtained, is in its nature a personal thing, and incommunicable to any but those who had some share in obtaining it.

Power

I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.

Friendship

The perfect friend sees the best in you -- sees it constantly -- not just when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more like his vision of you -- which is the person you have always wanted to be.

Success

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

Character

Don't be afraid to go after what you want to do, and what you want to be. But don't be afraid to be willing to pay the price.

Friendship

No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend until he is unhappy.

Politics

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

Politics

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

Knowledge

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

Money & Economics

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

Truth

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.

Education

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.

God & Religion

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.

Philosophy

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Friendship

Friendship is always a sweet responsibilty, never an oppourtunity.

Philosophy

They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.

Virtue

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

Friendship

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad.

Leadership

One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

Science & Technology

A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.

Freedom & Liberty

Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.

Time

Life punishes those who come too late.

Wall Street Protests

Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been through world history... It's when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich that suddenly debts become a sacred obligation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable.

Adversity

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.

God & Religion

Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.

Patriotism

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Freedom & Liberty

The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.

Adversity

All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them.

Adversity

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

Friendship

Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.

Science & Technology

The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science and imposture is the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.

Government

Love your country, but never trust its government.

Philosophy

Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.

Philosophy

Nothing is more common than unfulfilled potential.

Freedom & Liberty

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

Freedom & Liberty

It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen want? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Government

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

Right to Bear Arms

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?

Truth

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.

Truth

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusion of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of the siren, till she transforms us into beasts.

Government

We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex - but Congress can.

Character

When in doubt, do it.

Education

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Leadership

You manage things; you lead people.

Love

With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.

Miscellanious

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

Freedom & Liberty

There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.

Friendship

Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.

Friendship

Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

Knowledge

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

Life & Death

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Philosophy

To avoid criticis do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Virtue

An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

Government

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

Money & Economics

When a fellow says it ain't the money but the principle of the thing, it's the money.

Knowledge

Nothing else in the world...not all the armies...is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

Love

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Money & Economics

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

War

In the Twentieth Century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live. He will possess something higher than all these -- a great country, the whole earth, and a great hope, the whole heaven.

Philosophy

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

Government

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

People

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

Philosophy

The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.

God & Religion

Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?

God & Religion

It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.

Character

One man with courage makes a majority.

Miscellanious

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

Change

The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

America

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Character

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Freedom & Liberty

Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

Freedom & Liberty

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.

Freedom & Liberty

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Freedom & Liberty

The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.

Freedom & Liberty

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Friendship

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

God & Religion

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

God & Religion

They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

God & Religion

The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.

God & Religion

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

God & Religion

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

God & Religion

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...

Government

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

Government

[W]hat country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that [the] people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Government

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.

Government

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

Government

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and all that is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

Government

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

People

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

Politics

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Right to Bear Arms

The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Right to Bear Arms

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walk.

Wisdom

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Work

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Science & Technology

But not in the World According to Microsoft where users are idiots and Wizards claim a monopoly on common sense. I want smart software, but if I can't have that, I want dumb software that knows it is dumb and comes to me for help, not dumb software that thinks it is smart and tells me lies it believes to be true.

Friendship

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

America

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.

Freedom & Liberty

You [should] not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered.

Politics

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM.

Politics

It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy.

Politics

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Privacy

Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private.

The Future & Change

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.

Friendship

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.

Philosophy

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Advice

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

Love

I love you the more that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.

Friendship

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

Happiness

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

Philosophy

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

America

The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.

Freedom & Liberty

We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.

Freedom & Liberty

Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

Freedom & Liberty

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Freedom & Liberty

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

Knowledge

I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Knowledge

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

Leadership

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

Patriotism

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

People

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.

People

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

People

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Philosophy

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

Philosophy

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

Politics

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

Politics

When things don't go well they like to blame Presidents; and that's something that Presidents are paid for.

Politics

So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

The Future & Change

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

War

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.

America

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

America

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.

Character

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.

Dreams

Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?

Freedom & Liberty

At the heart of western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man... is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society.

Humor

People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.

Philosophy

Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Success

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Knowledge

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.

Character

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Friendship

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Justice

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Life & Death

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

Wisdom

Rarely do we find men who willingly to engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Justice

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

Freedom & Liberty

Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the "Unknown". When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.

Friendship

It is not the people that lift you up that matter but the people who keep you up.

Government

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

Taxes

Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.

Freedom & Liberty

Too many people are only willing to to defend rights that are personally important to them. It's selfish ignorance, and it's exactly why totalitarian governments are able to get away with trampling on people. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things *I* think I should be able to do. Freedom is for all of us. If people will not speak up for other's people's rights, there will come a day when they will lose their own.

God & Religion

There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.

Science & Technology

Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money.

Happiness

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

Humor

Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.

Miscellanious

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Power

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.

Philosophy

With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.

America

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be disolved. I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

America

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Freedom & Liberty

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

Freedom & Liberty

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

Government

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.

Humor

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

Miscellanious

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal" Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground -- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Philosophy

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt.

Philosophy

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Politics

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

Politics

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.

Right & Wrong

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Right & Wrong

Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right and PART with him when he goes wrong.

Success

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

Success

Good things come to those who wait, but only the things left over by those who hustle.

Truth

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

War

Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, A. Lincoln

Government

The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.

Philosophy

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

The Future & Change

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

Knowledge

Being intelligent is not a felony, but most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

Humor

If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.

Freedom & Liberty

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

Freedom & Liberty

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

Anger

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger. When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well; for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.

War

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction.

War

In war there is no substitute for victory.

People

It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.

Freedom & Liberty

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.

Freedom & Liberty

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it.

Government

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which grant[s] a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

Love

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.

God & Religion

The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.

Wisdom

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Taxes

The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create....

Patriotism

You cannot be strong in the big, important things if you are weak in the little things.

Humor

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

Humor

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

Government

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

Leadership

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.

People

A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.

Knowledge

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.

Humor

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.

God & Religion

I still say a church steeple with a lightening rod on top shows a lack of confidence.

Philosophy

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Freedom & Liberty

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Government

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

Marriage

Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing they die earlier.

Philosophy

For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong.

Politics

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Friendship

Friendship is not friendship without trust, without it I walk alone.

Character

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

Love

In the end, you'll know which people really love you. They're the ones who see you for who you are and, no matter what, always find a way to be at your side.

Freedom & Liberty

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

Freedom & Liberty

A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Freedom & Liberty

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

Politics

I did not say that conservatives tend to be stupid people. I said that stupid people tend to be conservative.

Knowledge

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

Success

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.

Freedom & Liberty

Freedom is being able to live with the consequences of your decisions.

Life & Death

He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

Leadership

No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.

America

The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.

Philosophy

Of those who say nothing, few are silent.

Government

Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.

Knowledge

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

Miscellanious

If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Freedom & Liberty

In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Philosophy

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.

Adversity

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Friendship

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Love

Love cannot survive if you give it scraps of yourself, scraps of your time, scraps of your thoughts.

Philosophy

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

People

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.

Philosophy

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

Philosophy

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Work

The best preparation tor tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.

Love

Love will enter cloaked in friendship's name.

Friendship

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.

Freedom & Liberty

Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

Freedom & Liberty

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression: for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach unto himself.

Government

When the people fear the government, you have tyranny. When the government fears the people, you have freedom.

Success

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.

People

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

War

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

Friendship

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

Knowledge

Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency.

Success

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.

Money & Economics

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Philosophy

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

Government

Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood.

Freedom & Liberty

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

Good & Evil

Let us remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will; for no man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of all evils.

Philosophy

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Politics

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

War

A tyrant...is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

War

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Wisdom

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Friendship

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.

West Wing

Let the word ring forth from this time and this place, gentleman: You kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster.

West Wing

Did you know that 2,000 years ago, a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world, free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words "Civis Romanus" -- "I am a Roman citizen." So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.

West Wing

I'm going to blow them off the face of the Earth with the fury of God's own thunder.

West Wing

You know what [the Torah] also says? It says a rebellious child can be brought to the city gates and stoned to death. It says homosexuality is an abomination and punishable by death. It says men can be polygamists and slavery is acceptable. For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of it's time--but it is just plain wrong by any modern standard. Society has a right to protect itself, but it doesn't have a right to be vengeful. It has a right to punish, but it doesn't have a right to kill.

Character

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned.

Freedom & Liberty

"Are we to understand," asked the judge, "that you hold your own interests above the interests of the public?" "I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals."

Freedom & Liberty

What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word 'We.'

Good & Evil

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

Government

We are fast approaching the state of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the state of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

Life & Death

I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

Philosophy

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.

Politics

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

Politics

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

The Future & Change

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.

God & Religion

To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on Heaven is to create hell. In their desperate longing to transcend the disorderliness, friction, and unpredictability that pesters life; in their desire for a fresh start in a tidy habitat, germ-free and secured by angels, religious multitudes are gambling the only life they may ever have on a dark horse in a race that has no finish line."

God & Religion

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Friendship

It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them

God & Religion

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

Government

There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

People

The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.

Character

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Fear

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Freedom & Liberty

In the truest sense freedom cannot be bestowed, it must be achieved.

Philosophy

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Politics

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

America

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

America

Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.

Character

Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character.

Philosophy

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Politics

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Success

It's not the critic who counts or how the strong man stumbled and fell or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat, and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause; and if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly; so that he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Freedom & Liberty

Acceptance of dissent is the fundamental requirement of a free society.

Work

When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the color petals out of a fruitful flower.

Wisdom

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

God & Religion

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.

Science & Technology

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.

Character

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

History

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Privacy

There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.

Education

Try not to have a good time...this is supposed to be educational.

Leadership

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

Right & Wrong

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

Love

Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.

Character

Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.

Love

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

Philosophy

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Right & Wrong

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

Happiness

He who has never hoped can never despair.

Miscellanious

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

People

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Philosophy

A ship in harbor is safe--- but that is not what ships are for.

Philosophy

Isn't it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now?

Leadership

Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves - and by which they are willing to be judged.

Science & Technology

Science is the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.

Friendship

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.

Miscellanious

For if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond; if the nature of man could sustain the sight, he would acknowledge that this other would was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.

Philosophy

If all our misfortuens were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.

Truth

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Virtue

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

Adversity

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Success

Success is dependent on effort.

Freedom & Liberty

Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils.

Character

People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.

Friendship

Keep your eyes upon me, keep me in your sight, Help me don the crooked road, lead me to the light. The road I'm on is dark, I'm not sure if I know the way, Yet with you right beside me, I'm certain I won't stray. Protect me from the world, I know we'll make it through, Give me all the strength I need..... Let me lean on you.

Justice

To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.

Patriotism

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.

Politics

Since when is public safety the root password to the Constitution?

Virtue

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

Life

One day at a time- this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.

Miscellanious

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made, Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred.

Good & Evil

Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.

Government

Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.

Government

I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.

Government

That government is best which governs least.

Friendship

We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.

Virtue

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

West Wing

I don't know where you get the idea that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for anything of which they disapprove. Lots of them don't like tanks. Even more don't like Congress.

Friendship

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

Life & Death

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

Miscellanious

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.

Leadership

When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people's excuse for failure.

Freedom & Liberty

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.

Slashdot

He lets the righteous in, He kicks the heathens out, He lets the righteous in, and he plops 'em on a cloud We do the hokey-pokey to prove we're all devout, That's what God's all about.

Advice

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Government

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Success

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

Computers

This is great ! I have been waiting for the helpfulness of clippy combined with the performance of java.

Humor

That's a good question. Let me try to evade you.

Fear

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

Life & Death

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first.

Literature

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

Money & Economics

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

Patriotism

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

People

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, are great.

People

If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.

Philosophy

Nothing that grieves us can be called little; by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

Philosophy

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Philosophy

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

Right & Wrong

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Right & Wrong

Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest.

Success

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

The Future & Change

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Truth

First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure.

Science & Technology

We have not answered every question you have. Each answer led to more questions. But perhaps now we are confused at a more sophisticated level, and about more important things.

Wall Street Protests

We are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.

America

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.

Government

Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends.

God & Religion

A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.

Friendship

May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.

God & Religion

If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated.

God & Religion

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

God & Religion

Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

Right & Wrong

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Philosophy

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.

Politics

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

Freedom & Liberty

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

People

The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.

Leadership

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

America

The United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion.

Freedom & Liberty

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

Friendship

I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination.

Friendship

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

Government

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Freedom & Liberty

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

Knowledge

The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.

Friendship

A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else.

Virtue

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

Truth

We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

Humor

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

Friendship

There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.

Knowledge

Sarcasm is the only intelligent person's response to irritating stupidity.

Friendship

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

Character

History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.

Love

All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.

Friendship

A true friend stabs you in the front.

God & Religion

I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Miscellanious

A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies.

People

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Philosophy

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

Truth

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Wisdom

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

Humor

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

Philosophy

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

Politics

A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.

Politics

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U. S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

America

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

Knowledge

Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.

People

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

Humor

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

Freedom & Liberty

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!