Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.

A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press.

The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.

Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social.

Hell is truth seen too late.

Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power.

The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life.

How could a state be governed, or protected in its foreign relations if every individual remained free to obey or not to obey the law according to his private opinion.

Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law

Curiosity is the lust of the mind.

You are capable of fulfilling your dream.

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.

We should go forward in courts and Congress with investigations into post-9/11 interrogations and the decisions leading to them.

I can show you new things, have you feeling spiritual.

You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development.

Sun of my soul! Thou Saviour dear, It is not night if Thou be near.

So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped.

It was really dreadful to be so different from other people…and yet rather wonderful, too, as if you were a being strayed from another star.

When I was 13, I told Henry Winkler I wanted to act. He said, Do it and don't let anyone stand in your way. His validation just made it all the more true. I haven't stopped thanking him since.

'YOU AREN'T TALENTED' - it cuts right to the fear of every artist.