Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself!

Honest history is the weapon of freedom.

The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

The basic human rights documents-the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man-were written by political, not by religious, leaders.

What we need is a rebirth of satire, of dissent, of irreverence, of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.

History is, indeed, an argument without end.

The genius of impeachment lay in the fact that it could punish the man without punishing the office.

Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.

For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.

Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.

There was a saying that a man's true character was revealed in defeat. I thought it was also revealed in victory.

My belief is you have one chance to make a first impression.

I want a Mini-Cooper because it's fuel efficient, emissions efficient and all that stuff. It's small and better for the environment. I think that will be my next car.

I think big-that's what my mother taught me. If you think small and accomplish it, what does it mean? Who cares? To me the sky's the limit, and I'm going to try and get there.

Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.

There's a physicality and confidence to Americans; they're very present. That's something I enjoy being around because it rubs off on you.

I try to be athletic.

Behind every argument is somebody's ignorance. Rediscover the foundation of truth and the purpose and causes of dispute immediately disappear.

I grew up on cricket and I think Australian kids are getting so Americanized.

Oh, when I was a kid in show business I was poor. I used to go to orgies to eat the grapes.