Films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really man it.

The heights by great men reached and kept Where not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

Plans will get you into things, but you have got to work your way out.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking.

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.

We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.

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 overwhelming importance of the atmosphere means that there are no longer any frontiers to defend against pollution, attack, or propaganda. It means, further, that only by a deep patriotic devotion to one’s country can there be a hope of the kind of protection of the whole planet, which is necessary for the survival of the people of other countries.

The generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.

To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

My own art is a negation of society, an affirmation of the individual, outside all rules and demands of society.

Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one is useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to allow his vision wherever it takes him.