Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the U.S. in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Seeing is not always believing.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

What really matters is how God sees me. He isn’t concerned with labels; he is concerned about the state of man’s soul.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

The narrow bandwidth of TV has made us think that we are stupider than we are.

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

Immediately after 11 September, the U.S. closed down the Somali charitable network Al-Barakaat on grounds that it was financing terror. This achievement was hailed one of the great successes of the ‚war on terror.‘ In contrast, Washington’s withdrawal of its charges as without merit a year later aroused little notice.

I mean, if you didn’t get it or if you didn’t feel like you enjoyed it, sometimes that experience can change.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Most people have no idea what something would sound like if it wasn’t an MP3.

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.

In today’s world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they’re cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

Changes are not unusual – I mean, most movies, when they release them, they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

I don’t know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called ‚walking.‘

I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‚fat cat‘ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‚public-spirited philanthropist‘.

If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein.

In Kosovo, the U.S. has chosen a course of action that escalates atrocities and violence. It is also a course of action that strikes a blow against the regime of international order, but which offers the weak at least some protection from predatory states.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

By curious accident of history and geography, the world’s major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They’re a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.

If you have enough people sitting around telling you you’re wonderful, then you start believing you’re fabulous, then someone tells you you stink and you believe that too!

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that.

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.

Words are more powerful than some noises. Noises won’t last long. Lyrics are so important, and people don’t realise that.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.