In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

We spend so much time sublimatin‘, thinkin‘ about, ‚What am I going to have for lunch, dinner?‘

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.

When in doubt, don’t.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

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

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

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

I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

All art is quite useless.

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

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

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.

My parents had us in church every Sunday, every Wednesday. It was more of a tradition at that point; I didn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord until I went to the altar call one Sunday, and the youth pastor told us to make a decision for ourselves.

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

I never do anything that I don’t want to do.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

There were the questions of what kind of First Lady I would be, what issues would I focus on. Those were the questions that were being pounded on me through the campaign. A lot of times, I wondered what in the world Barack was even getting us into.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

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.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

My biographers… would like to have my time at the court almost complete before they finish the book. We decided… to flip the order.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove. But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.

The very phrase ‚foreign affairs‘ makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

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.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues – of my comrades in the movement – who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

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

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

In my line of work, the enemy gets a vote.