Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

If looks could kill, she’d be a dead woman.

But giving up's easy. You know what's hard? To believe in your own worth, to know you've got something special in you even if nobody else can see it. Even when you can't.

A rumbling volcano is like a pimple.You know that they're both going to explode, but you just don't know when.

Rebellion has its roots in government's indifference and incompetence.

Work is an almost pure expression of the self.

The finishing off of the encircled enemy army is to be left to the Luftwaffe.

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.

ISIS has a caliphate the size of Indiana! Also, US military has been totally gutted. Can't even project power anymore.

I grew up certain for a while that I was going to be an anthropologist, until film turned my head.

My wife is short, and my two kids are also small.