The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.

Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.

Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

Real relations are not what we make. It's what time makes.

We ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speak to Him frankly and plainly, and implore His assistance in our affairs.

There are countries that prefer to think that they're buying comfort at the cost of others, but I don't think that's the way you can act in this world. There are no neutral groups.

Risk is a function of how poorly a strategy will perform if the 'wrong' scenario occurs.

As soon as you start mixing up politics and some sort of ethical code in music, you've got it all wrong.

I don't think there is a woman in her 40s who doesn't, kind of, examine herself in the mirror.

We can't change what we've done, but we can always change what we're going to do.

Being ruled by a depraved poet-king who is sacrified each spring is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

takes a devil to make a decent angel.