There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

The fault lines are shifting from the boundaries of nations into the web of our societies and the streets of our cities. And, terrorism and extremism are a global force that are larger than their changing names, groups, territories and targets.

What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

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

War is a way of shattering to pieces… materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and… too intelligent.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.

The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.

It’s an awful feeling to write something that you feel is really important… and to feel that you’re being published by people who really don’t get it and/or don’t really care.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

Morality arose largely as an empirical defence of the individual and society. Ever since intelligent beings began to be in contact, and consequently in friction, they have felt the need to guard themselves against each other’s encroachments.

It’s just human nature to try and figure things out. So, when we’re in the midst of a situation, we usually try to reason our way through it.

Judas betrayed Jesus. Lady Red betrayed John Dillinger. Those things happen.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

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

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?

People like to talk about war.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

No one can say, ‚I have dropped out – I am no longer in the system.‘ When you’re in prison, you’re even closer to the system: you feel it more, and you might be in there for whatever reason. You don’t transform the system as an absolute thing.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain – we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

The only frustrating thing about jail is that I can’t make music.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.