The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors.

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.

Take excuses and procrastination as your enemies. Let them see you and frown their faces and bypass you without greetings. You will excel if you don’t internalize the habit of giving excuses.

To test a man, determine how much it takes to make him lie.

The fight for joy is first and always a fight to see.

The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women’s freedoms in southern Somalia – that type of mentality – that’s what I had to deal with in captivity.

Genius consists of equal parts of natural aptitude and hard work.

Finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist.

The essence of good advertising is not to inspire hope, but to create greed.

Chaos was the natural law of the universe. Indifference was the engine of entropy. Man's apathy was the fertile ground in which the dark spirits tended their seeds.

Obviously, there is pleasure in the execution of any sort of art, and using language, as Nabokov felt also, is an exquisite process.

Art is a way of freezing time, or extending time. ... It's another way to bridge the gaps between us.