All great men are partially inspired.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Invest in friendships but be aware of those who only love your public success for personal gain. People who really love you cover your private failures!

What is missing in our economic system is a central value that can encompass everything that can be transacted and used to assign the proper relative value to everything.

Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.

But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts

Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary.

I mean . . . who was it that said if the door is locked, find a window. If the windows locked, well . . . break it. If it won't break then find a freaking sledgehammer and make a new one.

A man may not transgress the bounds of major morals, but may make errors in minor morals.

Getting on stage is a bonus, that's my therapy, that's when I can tell stories and it all makes sense.

Germany, I think, was first to substitute a Social Security program for its elderly based on this premise, that is, that we would tax workers to pay retirement benefits for those retired.

I would like to sound like James Mason. I reckon if I'd had a better voice I could have been prime minister. It is the most irritating voice in public life.