I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans (1888).

What we learn from History is that no one learns from History

The Americans are a very lucky people. They're bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors, and to the east and west by fish.

God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

We live in a wondrous time in which the strong is weak because of his moral scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.

Never fight with Russian. On your every stratagem they answer unpredictable stupidity.

He is a self-made man and worships his creator.

I don't like speed. I would have made a terrible Futurist. Even when I did take drugs, I never liked amphetamines and much preferred the slow taffy-pull of time that you get with opiates.

That which two will, takes effect.

The improvisation had to be in public, because you only get value playing to strangers.

The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.

The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles.

A world government run by the UN will be like getting an old, purblind, half-deaf substitute teacher.

Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune.

You must direct your full, intense concentration on the heart. You must feel that you are not the mind. You have to feel that you are growing into the heart. You are only the heart and nothing else.

I hated teenagers in comics because they were always sidekicks. And I always felt if I were a superhero, there's no way I'd pal around with some teenager, you know.