Happiness is peace after strife, the overcoming of difficulties, the feeling of security and well-being. The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

It takes more than coming up with some great ideas to succeed in life. The land of success is only full of doers.

In rough times, pathfinders rely on work, friends, humor and prayer. They develop a support network.

Socializing on the internet is to socializing what reality TV is to reality.

I'm never satisfied, I always want to do better. That's how it is to be an elite athlete, you're never happy. When you start getting happy and you start feeling satisfied, you're done.

I do not say what I feel, and people often take that for shyness, even kindness.

Outside of acting, the person that I admire the most is my mother.

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.

I do love genres, but I love finding new ways into the genre, or making that world fresh again.

Technology makes possibilities. Design makes solutions. Art makes questions. Leadership makes actions.

The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.