As a Western, ‚The Magnificent Seven‘ was a pretty good film. I don’t think it was as interesting or as multi-faceted as ‚Seven Samurai.‘

I guess every single word I’ve ever said is going to be dissected now.

I’m the first to admit this whole salary thing is getting out of control. In the final analysis, it’s still about the work.

War is so complex; human nature is so complex. There’s no filmmaker who has ever figured it out perfectly.

The behavior of the crowd at Churchill Downs is like 100,000 vicious Hyenas going berserk all at once in a space about the size of a 777 jet or the White House lawn.

Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that – is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

Although the big word on the left is ‚compassion,‘ the big agenda on the left is dependency.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality.

Yes, I’m always – I’m always surprised when you make a film and you live with it a while and you put it out, you never dream that anybody is ever going to want to really see it.

I think – I don’t know, maybe it’s nostalgia. But the choice, losing the choice to be able to use film is going to be – it’s gone. It’s going to be gone.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

It is always good men who do the most harm in the world.

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror.

If you consider film an art form, as some people do, then the Western would be a truly American art form, much as jazz is.

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.

It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

I’m not a film buff. I don’t watch a lot of movies.

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

Experts often possess more data than judgment.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.

If the experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects; but if valid, then by proving the theory, they must render all objections invalid.

Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.

Dissents speak to a future age.

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.

I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose… it’ll be much harder to detect.

I’ve always wanted to do a family movie.

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.