I think it’s a myth that American public or any other public is so stupid that they need to be constantly pricked.

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

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

He who acts with a constant view to his own advantage will be much murmured against.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

People see things differently and remember things differently. It’s why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses they’ll often disagree.

No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it’s this world or nothing. That’s a very powerful perception.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

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

A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

There is no sin except stupidity.

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

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.

Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

There may not be one Truth – there may be several truths – but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

When I was 18, I thought that, to be a romantic, you couldn’t live past 30.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

The mainstream is always under attack.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

When the Oakies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states.

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

We misjudge risk if we feel we have some control over it, even if it’s an illusory sense of control.

There are some people who hate my guts. But that goes with the territory.

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.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

I find it amusing that I’m on the Internet now, because I’ve criticized it, but mainly I’ve criticized it on the basis of, ‚What are you going to do with it?‘

Especially when you’re at a high level in an organization, criticism can be devastating to an employee. I prefer to praise employees for what they’re doing right, and it tends to lead to them doing more of the same. Not always, but it’s the way I choose to bet.

There are very few people who really appreciate my shows. People come to the show and they pay and they enjoy it, but I don’t really think most people really understand what they’ve seen.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

A reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.

In the ’50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.