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.

A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

Relationships are like traffic lights. And I just have this theory that I can only exist in a relationship if it’s a green light.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.

Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?

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.

Corruption is one of the most common reasons I hear in views that criticize aid.

What we achieved was a nuclear pause, not a nuclear halt.

You know, crankiness is at the essence of all comedy.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Creationists make it sound as though a ‚theory‘ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

The dominant theory coming out of Hollywood is that peoples‘ attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and they need more stimulation.

We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

History, a distillation of rumour.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.

The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.

A president has an inescapable responsibility to provide direction: What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to prevent? Why? To do that, he has to both analyze and reflect.

That the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another is a matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated.

Pop is totally results-oriented and there is a very strong feedback loop.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

There are two bowlers who I think are very tough to play against – Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel.

Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive.

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

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

There is no body of theory or significant body of relevant information, beyond the comprehension of the layman, which makes policy immune from criticism.

Atoms are very special: they like certain particular partners, certain particular directions, and so on. It is the job of physics to analyze why each one wants what it wants.

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.

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

I never accepted Communist dogma or theory.

I constructed a laboratory in the neighborhood of Pike’s Peak. The conditions in the pure air of the Colorado Mountains proved extremely favorable for my experiments, and the results were most gratifying to me.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

In the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, it now seems clear that the shock of the attacks was exploited in America.

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

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

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

I shall proceed from the simple to the complex. But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the whole must always be thought of together.

Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein’s general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.

The racing is quite boring, sometimes. It’s hard to see how it pulls in fans.

You do 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 harms it would cause if improperly administered.

‚Kiss Land‘ is like a horror movie.

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

Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun.

There’s no doubt that inequality destabilizes societies. I think the social science evidence on that front is crystal clear.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Maybe stories are just data with a soul.