Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left – which prevails in our education system from elementary school to postgraduate study – are not likely to get much attention.

For 2,500 years, India has never invaded anybody.

I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same time, there’s a real lightheartedness about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they’re not the same, ever again.

Born to a tribal Bedouin family of nomadic desert shepherds in the region of Tripoli, Gaddafi was profoundly anti-colonialist. It is affirmed that his paternal grandfather died fighting against the Italian invaders when Libya was invaded by them in 1911.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

Have you ever thought how humiliating and distressing it was to be placed upon a sphere? For friendship it is a boon never to be able to be further apart than the antipodes. But suppose that you are leaving together to go on and on; it is impossible. To go beyond a certain point is to return to where you began.

Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!

We have one planet in our solar system that’s habitable, and that’s the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

I tried being reasonable, I didn’t like it.

The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

There is no unique picture of reality.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

NATO’s brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind.

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

The Bible is full of warnings about false prophets and false messiahs. These satanically inspired people have appeared in almost every generation of history.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.

‚WASP‘ is the only ethnic term that is in fact a term of class, apart from redneck, which is another word for the same group but who are in the lower social strata, so it’s inexplicably tied up with social standing and culture and history in a way that the other hyphenations just are not.

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

History is written by the victors.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Applause is a receipt, not a bill.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

If you would judge, understand.

I’ll tell you one thing, since I’m married, single people look absolutely ridiculous to me.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.

We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.