Study men, not historians.

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.

The proper study of mankind is books.

We’ve got to dumb America up again.

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

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.

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

I read the book of Job last night, I don’t think God comes out well in it.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Even with cameras being very cheap, one thing that researchers noticed was that you look really bad in a videoconference image because the lighting is bad and you get shadows and things.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

There’s a personality trait known as agreeableness. Agreeable people are compassionate and polite. And agreeable people get paid less than disagreeable people for the same job. Women are more agreeable than men.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

As abhorrent as some of this content can be, I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.

Thinking fragments reality – it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

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.

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.

I did study religion for a little while. I studied the Torah and the Holy Koran, Helios Biblos, which is considered by most people to be the Holy Bible. I just wanted to know, even with Buddhism and the Dalai Llama.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

Women have to be active listeners and interrupters – but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.

Men and women do think differently, and frankly, we don’t understand each other. Not at all! But that’s what makes relationships so amazing.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowing more than they do.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

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

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

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

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing.

Truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.