It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

As a Western, ‚The Magnificent Seven‘ was a pretty good film. I don’t think it was as interesting or as multi-faceted as ‚Seven Samurai.‘

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

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.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

The ‚free-floating intellectual‘ may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

‚Kiss Land‘ is like a horror movie.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.

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

Some of the generals are saying, ‚We’re making progress. We are clearing an area.‘ But you really don’t defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

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

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.

War – An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.

Politics… have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

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.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

It is often useful, if an enemy happens to see you, to pretend that you have not seen him. Or it may sometimes be useful to pretend that you have other men with you. I did this once in the Boer War when, having crept up a donga to look at a Boer fort, I was seen by the enemy, and they came out to capture me.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

There’s no doubt that inequality destabilizes societies. I think the social science evidence on that front is crystal clear.

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that – is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

All art is quite useless.

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

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

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

Our priority is to go after ISIL. And so what we have said is that we are not engaging in a military action against the Syrian regime. We are going after ISIL facilities and personnel who are using Syria as a safe haven, in service of our strategy in Iraq.

Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

Well, when you come down to it, I don’t see that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?

The Army will take its lessons learned. They’re excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

If you look at ‚Blade Runner,‘ it’s been cut sixteen ways from Sunday, and there are all kinds of different versions of it.

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

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.

Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower.

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.