The more tightly packed the group, the greater the need for strict social ranks and orders.

The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.

Any school for free citizens must begin by teaching distrust, not trust. It must teach questioning, not acceptance of stock answers.

It's so much more interesting to study a ... damaged world. I find it difficult to learn anything in a place that's too civilized.

Simplicity is the most difficult of all concepts.

Facts mean nothing when they are preempted by appearance. Do not underestimate the power of impression over reality.

It is astonishing how foolish humans can be in groups, especially when they follow their leader without question.

How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man.

Life is filled with tests, one after another, and if you don't recognize them, you are certain to fail the most important ones.

The first step in innovation is to know that a thing can be created. After that, the rest is a matter of detail.

Let the future remain uncertain, for that is the canvas to receive our desires.

A brave action is often followed by grief. Do not let my resistance to grief stop the brave action.

Because fear is insatiable, everything that is insatiable is born of fear.

It was my dream that screwed up, the stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow one great red line across America instead of trying various roads and routes.

There was a period of time in America where the advertising world actually went to the housewives of America and had them write jingles that would appeal to them. It was actually brilliant marketing.

I feel like I'm creeping closer to finding the situation that triggers songwriting, which is obviously an extreme of an emotion.

I went to Europe and, as I've been told, ate my way out of a career.

To play the guitar well is easy, to play the guitar poorly is difficult.

Laissez-faire, supply and demand-one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egotism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause-it is the gospel of despair.

Among the tortures and devestations of life is this then - our friends are not able to finish their stories.

When a man knows how to live amid danger, he is not afraid to die. When he is not afraid to die, he is, strangely, free to live.