Sometimes we live too much in the past, remembering what we wished had happened.

Too often our visions of the futureare dull and impotentlike a hammer beating the water.

Memory shimmers as a crystal lakethat reflects all things invisible.

Reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought. . . . life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence.

The past with its pleasures its rewards its foolishness its punishments is there for each of us forever and it should be.

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances.

I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk.

Most clear writing is a sign that there is no exploration going on. Clear prose indicates the absence of thought.

A general-in-chief should ask himself several times in the day, What if the enemy were to appear now in my front, or on my right, or my left?

Many times the wrong train took me to the right place.

You are most like Christ, when you remain silent under attack.

If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.

If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.