Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

In legal language, a covenant generally denotes an agreement between two or more parties. But in a religious context, a covenant is much more significant. It is a sacred promise with God. He fixes the terms.

There’s some jerks. There’s some big egos. There are a few that think they’re one of the Founding Fathers… in both parties.

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

I make it a rule never to smoke while I’m sleeping.

I am fearful, or suspicious, of generalizations… They cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals.

A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.

With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

The fault lines are shifting from the boundaries of nations into the web of our societies and the streets of our cities. And, terrorism and extremism are a global force that are larger than their changing names, groups, territories and targets.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.

Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.

The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.

For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it’s time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the delight of life, which they are thenceforth to rule.

We should remember that there are nations which meet more than 30 to 60% of their power requirements through the nuclear power system.

I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Politically, the world is so confused right now – there’s so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.

Contention does not usually begin as strife between countries. More often, it starts with an individual, for we can contend within ourselves over simple matters of right and wrong. From there, contention can infect neighbors and nations like a spreading sore.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

Today different ethnic groups and different nations come together due to common sense.

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

Nations consist of people. And with their effort, a nation can accomplish all it could ever want.

I’m interested in what motivates individuals to participate in atrocious acts to support their ideological identification.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

Most men are within a finger’s breadth of being mad.