The majority never think beyond what they are told.

It wasn't until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say "I don't know."

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men—the other 999 follow women.

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge are not infused into us from without.

Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.

He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.

A society that tolerates intimidation as a means of settling disputes…loses its moral rights to exist as a social system, and its collapse does not take long to follow.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot. Men are no superior by reason of the accidents of race and color. The are superior who have the best heart—the best brain.

This I learned in Auschwitz: There are only two races. The race of the decent and the race of the indecent.

You don't have to be big or well known to be great.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

The way you habitually think will determine your destiny.

The world is a comedy to those that think, and a tragedy to those that feel.

He who has so little knowledge of human natures as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.

The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

I have met men who are habitual liars. They have lied so long that they no longer can distinguish between the truth and a lie. Their sensitivity to sin has been almost completely deadened.

It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.

To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

If you can't find the truth right where you are, where else do you think you will find it.