I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.

The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.

I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.

A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.

Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.

It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one's own ignorance.

Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong.

In a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie's time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we bother with all the distractions we did?

All things change nothing is extinguished.

Keeping a little ahead of conditions is one of the secrets of business; the trailer seldom goes far.

Whenever I try to do anything on a typewriter, it's like having this machine between me and the words; what comes out is not quite what would come out if I were scribbling.

We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press...It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.

Things good in themselves ... perfectly valid in the integrity of their origins, become fetters if they cannot alter.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting.

The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.

Those two teachers [Kathleen Blackshear and Robert von Neumann] were just fantastic, I thought. They never directed you in a single direction, but they just encouraged you to think for yourself.

Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.