More die in the United States of too much food than of too little

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual Monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

But there is merit even in the mentally retarded legislator. He asks the questions that everyone is afraid to ask for fear of seeming simple.

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

If all else fails immortality can always be assured by adequate error.

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.

There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.

Simple minds, presumably, are the easiest to manage.

Every corner of the public psyche is canvassed by some of the most talented citizens to see if the desire for some merchandisable product can be cultivated.

No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill.

My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.

Social psychology has found the more you reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.

Success is the residue of planning.

Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.

We know: of course, with regard to the market and similar social structures, a great many facts which we cannot measure and on which indeed we have only some very imprecise and general information.

It's important for me to fight for principles. But I am not willing to cope with the nastiness of politics anymore and the endless destructive confrontations that it leads to.

If I couldn't be pretty, I decided I would be smart.

When you spend all your time worrying that the devil is right behind you, eventually you start seeing him whether he's there or not.

As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.