The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

Strength and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

The fact that you are willing to say, ‚I do not understand, and it is fine,‘ is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

I believe Karl Marx could have subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

When it comes to the qualifications that we should demand of our president, to start with, we need someone who will take the job seriously.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

How can a president not be an actor?

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.