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.

A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.

I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.

If we focus on ourselves alone, we run our nation down.

It's scary when you get to a point where you write these songs that people like, and then you think, "Am I ever going to be able to write something better than that?"

Still when I go on talk shows, I worry that I have to live up to a comedic persona.

And I think it's really easy for people to point out hypocrisy in people's lives.

We thank you [the soldiers recently returned from the middle east] for your service.

It's almost two societies, the living and the dead, and you live with them both.

To be able to see the flaws in your own work is a gift.

The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.

People find a way in which they can say something.