No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as Richard the Lion-Hearted, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

The entering class I joined in 1956 included just nine women, up from five in the then second-year class, and only one African American. All professors, in those now-ancient days, were of the same race and sex.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

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

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

It’s not that every single thing that happens on Facebook is gonna be good. This is humanity. People use tools for good and bad, but I think that we have a clear responsibility to make sure that the good is amplified and to do everything we can to mitigate the bad.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

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

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Remember that your imagination is yours and yours alone. You have the inborn capacity to use it in any way that you choose. No one else is responsible for your imagination. Anything placed in your imagination and held there ultimately becomes your reality.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

The U.S.S.R. had absolutely nothing to do with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

I don’t watch it, but I know enough to comment on it.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Something must be done to save humanity! A better world is possible!

I never played with anything like toys.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

Many admire, few know.

Imagination decides everything.