That the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another is a matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated.

Women. They are a complete mystery.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

An economist’s guess is liable to be as good as anybody else’s.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

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.

Politics… have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

Atoms are very special: they like certain particular partners, certain particular directions, and so on. It is the job of physics to analyze why each one wants what it wants.

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

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

Cobb is a prick. But he sure can hit. God Almighty, that man can hit.

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

The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let the smallest detail escape them. These small things are called by Scouts ‚Sign.‘

Truth is weirder than any fiction I’ve seen.

I am not enough of a mathematician to be able to judge either the well-foundedness or the limits of relativity in physics.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them.

History, a distillation of rumour.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

I don’t think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

At ev’ry word a reputation dies.

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

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

It’s funny; recently I’ve started to notice people’s impersonations of me, and it’s basically like a hyperactive child.

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

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.

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

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

That was the first time I saw a horse start from a kneeling position!

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

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.

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

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

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

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

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I’m no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

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

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

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

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses.

This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

A witty saying proves nothing.

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

History is more or less bunk.