Lack of clarity is always a sign of dishonesty.

I cannot write long books; I leave that for those who have nothing to say.

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way.

Society expresses its sympathy for the geniuses of the past to distract attention from the fact that it has no intention of being sympathetic to the geniuses of the present.

A narrow mind and a wide mouth usually go together.

The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.

When someone says his conclusions are objective, he means that they are based on prejudices which many other people share.

One of the greatest superstitions of our time is the belief that it has none.

The human race has to be bad at psychology; if it were not, it would understand why it is bad at everything else.

The only important thing to realise about history is that it all took place in the last five minutes.

The remarkable thing about the human mind is its range of limitations.

Like it or not, how we each present ourselves to the world, by way of our appearance, attire, behavior, and speech, all send messages on our behalf.

I think once I fail enough as a dad, I'll be looking for help wherever I can get it. I just need enough time to screw things up and then I'll start looking to TV dads for advice.

There's no one, no one, loves you like yourself.

The exceptionalism of a black U.S. President is not important to me. It's what he does - and who he has at the table.

No blur of inexactness, no cloud of vagueness, is allowable in good writing; from the first seeing to the last putting down, there must be steady lucidity and uncompromise of purpose.

Passion is temporary. It doesn't last long. Love is enduring. And that's the important thing. If we all had love in our lives to the degree that we should, it would be much happier.

All things are subject to decay and change.

So you see, in the end, it is nearly certain that the power of prediction must triumph over the arrogance of elegance.

Art has to be severe. It cannot be commercial. It cannot be for the producer or even for the public. It has to be for oneself.

For many years, I hated nature. As a student, I refused to put a plant anywhere - a living plant, that is. Dead plants were OK.