We generally write best of what we ourselves have seen.

If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.

Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.

A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water.

Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.

Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.

Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice.

Because bankers measure their self-worth in money, and pay themselves a lot of it, they think they're fine fellows and don't need to explain themselves.

What is your motivation? When you drill down and ask, "What if there was zero ROI (of any form)?, " you'll discover your highest and best use of time.

To think you know what is best for another person is an industrial-strength ego trip.

If a man sets out to hate all the miserable creatures he meets, he will not have much energy left for anything else; whereas he can despise them, one and all, with the greatest ease.

Patience is idling your motor when you feel like stripping a gear.

Ours is a time of the machine, and ours is a need to know that the machine can be put to creative human effort. If not, the machine can destroy us.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

I wanna die young and sell my soul, use up all your drugs and make me come.

I’m protecting her. (Wulf) From? (Chris) Daimons. (Wulf) Big bad ones. (Cassandra)

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

I think in 2012 one of the primary issues that will get a lot of discussion will be comprehensive tax reform.