Quotes to inspire and reflect

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the State.

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

We can understand almost anything, but we can't understand how we understand.

Information is not knowledge.

Do not wait for the last judgement. It comes every day.

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love’s opposite.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault.

Nothing is built on stone all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

He who controls the past controls the future.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

When anger rises, think of the consequences.

If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Originality is the art of concealing your sources.

I do not cut my life up into days but my days into lives, each day, each hour, an entire life.

To the mean all becomes mean.

No one can be good for long if goodness is not in demand.

Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.

The real price of everything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is.

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

Respect yourself and others will respect you.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.

Sin is geographical.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest—ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook.

I was so horrified when I read about the effects of smoking that I gave up reading.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.

 

A hungry man is not a free man.

 

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

“Anyone who can make you angry becomes your master.”

We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Never underestimate your own ignorance.