In 1949, China declared independence - an event known in Western discourse as 'the loss of China' in the U.S. - with bitter recriminations and conflict over who was responsible for that loss.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.

All women are the same, really: They are strong, but they are afraid of their own strength.

Work could cure almost anything

Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.

It is the mission of all art to express the highest and most beautiful ideals of man.

Stage-persona notwithstanding, I'm extremely shy and quiet. Almost painfully shy. People misinterpret that as being above it all or not interested.

Happened to be the first time we played the song live, but I absolutely for the life of me could not find the key singing and had to stop the band to find it.

I realized a long time ago that instead of being jealous you can be inspired and appreciative. It carries more energy to you.

Mathematics is the source of a wicked intellect that, while making man the lord of the earth, also makes him the slave of the machine.

I remember Zachary Quinto were just about to go and do So Notorious on VH1, and I was super unemployed, and I think we spent a lot of time talking about how we weren't particularly happy.