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.

His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other ‚studies‘ courses.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

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

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.

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

History is more or less bunk.

To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts.

History should be written as philosophy.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately control the world.

I work all day, do research, sketch my ideas, prepare for performances.

Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing. Today you are looking at the Taliban or ISIS; tomorrow you might be looking at another name.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

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.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

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

I love trying new things.

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

I wasn’t a normal professor. I had worked in government. I hadn’t written nine zillion books. I was a hands-on professor.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

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.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.

It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

Even with cameras being very cheap, one thing that researchers noticed was that you look really bad in a videoconference image because the lighting is bad and you get shadows and things.

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

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.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

Isn’t it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?

As abhorrent as some of this content can be, I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice.

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water. There are too many inconsistencies.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

I don’t like allegories.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.

For me, when you are have people wondering what is next, what is coming out, you are on the right track.

My publication record puts me in the top 0.5 percent of psychologists.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

I read the book of Job last night, I don’t think God comes out well in it.

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‚how‘ and ‚why‘ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

Truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen.

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

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

When I would hear the rabbi tell about some miracle such as a bush whose leaves were shaking but there wasn’t any wind, I would try to fit the miracle into the real world and explain it in terms of natural phenomena.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

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

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.