What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

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.

I don’t do research. I never have.

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

Although the big word on the left is ‚compassion,‘ the big agenda on the left is dependency.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

Stupidity is a talent for misconception.

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

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

To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.

I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

The Army will take its lessons learned. They’re excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

If somebody’s dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they’re going to have to take what they get.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Youth is wasted on the young.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.

Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

Children are all foreigners.

Applause is a receipt, not a bill.

I never admire another’s fortune so much that I became dissatisfied with my own.

Let’s be honest. Canada wasn’t ever cool.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Corruption is one of the most common reasons I hear in views that criticize aid.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Being young is a great advantage, since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.

I think the word rich is all relative.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

Right after 9-11, as far as I know, one newspaper in the United States had the integrity to investigate opinion in the Muslim world: the ‚Wall Street Journal.‘

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

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

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

Sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth… Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.

Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.