The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare mankind for all its later surprises.

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing.'

Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.

I write to discover what I think.

Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.

Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.

The products your life must have could be in the form of an improved character and virtue.

How do you get so empty? he wondered. Who takes it out of you?

Being an optimist after you've got everything you want doesn't count.

Sleep just gives the ego a little time out. It has to stay strong in order to be something that it isn't.

A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity.

I found out about Jonathan Winters death a day after it happened. That seems wrong. A talent like his should be more revered. The world knew about Kim Kardashians divorce before she did.

We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.

I've been on a show before where I was on a billboard and then, after like three or four weeks, they took the billboard down and replaced it with nothing. Took my face down and put a white board up.

It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.

The law can seem remote, arcane, the stuff of specialists. But it isn't, because for those of us who live in democracies, the law begins with us.