The great Chinese classics have always said that it's better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought.

I think that black Africa is extremely terrifying. Black Africa can become a maelstrom of warring tribes without the outside world needing to feel the need to do anything about it.

I don't think that what's going on in Bosnia is political activity. It's partly political, but it's partly atavistic as well.

It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.

I don't look to find an educated person in the ranks of university graduates, necessarily. Some of the most educated people I know have never been near a university.

Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done.

The written history of the world is largely a history of warfare, because the states within which we live came into existence largely through conquest, civil strife, or struggles for independence.

The historian ought to be an educated person, writing for other educated people about something which they don't know about, but wish to know about in a way that they can understand.

There are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force

The revival of Islam dates from the early years of the 20th century. It was brought about by their humiliation, by their sense of how low they'd fallen compared with the West.

A civilised man is someone who has discovered something more satisfying than combat.

Do not give up on yourself as you encounter your worst version and do not take it easy as you experience your higher self.

Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty.

Seek not a lighthouse greater than the human mind!

We find happiness doing what we love.

But like balloons, they were excessively buoyant, and if you weren't careful, they floated away.

Let us be French as the Americans are English.

Solitude is un-American.

The fact that there is a general belief in a future life is no evidence of its truth

I like the fact that I'm involved in a career that gives me so many different mediums to perform in.

Are you cold when you are happy? Are you cold when you are unhappy? Then you are a wise man! Wisdom makes man cool and calm. Wise man is cool and calm!