Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when its waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye.

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire.

Latinos are Republican. They just don’t know it yet.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that ‚Oryx and Crake‘ is anti-science. Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses. And it can be bought and sold, and it often is. But it is not in itself bad. Like electricity, it’s neutral.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

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.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

Nine men in ten are would be suicides.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

There happen to be a lot of people around who spent an hour on the Internet and think they know a lot of physics, but it doesn’t work like that… There’s a reason there are graduate schools in these departments.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

Science is nothing but perception.

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

Most people have the opportunity of a lifetime flash right in front of them, and they fail to see it. A year later, they find out about it, after everyone else got rich.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

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

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.

God not only plays dice, but also sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

An empowered organisation is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organisational success.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the decisions.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

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

I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.

I don’t know what’s better gettin‘ laid or gettin‘ paid.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.

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.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.

Great teachers emanate out of knowledge, passion and compassion.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

A financial institution has the task of taking risks, and if it’s a well run institution – say, Goldman Sachs – it tries to cover the potential losses to itself, but only to itself.

We do need women in civic life. We do need women to run for office, to be in political office. We need a feminist to be at the table when decisions are being made so that the right decisions will be made.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

We’ve got to dumb America up again.