We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

Those who cry out that the government should ‚do something‘ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Error is always more busy than truth.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

I kinda live where I find myself.

Frankly, I think that the news industry is critically important because it points out things and surfaces truths that can often be uncomfortable. I think that that’s working, and the spotlight has been pointed on things that we have a responsibility to do better, and I accept that.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‚If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?‘ And whenever the answer has been ‚No‘ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

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

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

I have only one counsel for you – be master.

I don’t consider myself an intellectual. And this is not one of my aims. But I admire intellectual people.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Boot camp sucks – SEAL training sucks – but you know what? That’s what makes you good.

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

I just have always felt that people don’t change, circumstances change.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.