Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

String theory makes sense to me because the universe is a symphony that creates harmony with the vibration of our strings.

Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.

Nurture youroriginality, don’t ever bury itaway.

I can explain why I have to do what I'm about to do, but I'm acutely aware that an explanation is not a righteous justification. What's bad is bad even if necessary.

Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another.

In the end we can never be given knowledge by others; we can only be stimulated. We must develop our own knowledge.

I am very mistrustful of people who are constantly over intellectualising things. It kills passion. You have to allow yourself to lose control from time to time.

Granting amnesty to people who broke the law penalizes the millions of people who are waiting to come to America legally.

This is the Zen approach: nothing is there to be done. There is nothing to do. One has just to be. Have a rest and be ordinary and be natural.

Remember to be awesome.