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.

I’m not an expert on the arms race.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

Romcoms are hard in a lot of ways: they’re built to be buoyant. It’s easy to demean them.

The concept of Kimye has more cultural significance than what Page Six could write.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

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.

‚Kiss Land‘ is like a horror movie.

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

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

There is no gambling like politics.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

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

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

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

When I was researching my book ‚The 33 Strategies of War‘, I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.

The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

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

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

I don’t easily fall for lies, I can see through things.

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

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.

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

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

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

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.

I think a lot of things that are the norm, that are very systematic, don’t work.

Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.

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

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

Everything popular is wrong.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

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

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.

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

Today, all physicists know from studying Einstein and Bohr that sometimes an idea which looks completely paradoxical at first, if analyzed to completion in all detail and in experimental situations, may, in fact, not be paradoxical.

All art is quite useless.

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

History should be written as philosophy.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.

I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ‚hopey changey stuff,‘ she was right: there was nothing there.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit.

Politics… have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.