Talent is often a defect in character.

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.

An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

My soul pines for the color in my heart.

See with the eyes of love and a thing becomes beautiful. See with the eyes of hate and things are ugly.

It is proper for people to have friends, friendships without self-interest. Without friends, life is too lonely.

Boys, be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money, not for selfish aggrandizement, not for the evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for the attainment of all that a man can be.

The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.

The imperial vastness of late Roman architecture was made possible by the invention of concrete.

Intelligence is not creative; judgment is not creative. If a sculptor is nothing but skill and mind, his hands will be without genius.

I like a drama. And I think that's the basis of good films, or good plays, is to have a nice drama.

Each man's life is a kind of campaign, and a long and complicated one at that. You have to maintain the character of a soldier, and do each separate act at the bidding of the General.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.