Quotes to inspire and reflect

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected .

The first duty of a man is to think for himself.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied .

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom .

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are - the refuge of political and economic opportunist.

Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

He who seeks equality amongst unequals seeks the absurd .

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.

Success has always been a great liar.

The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep the truth is that they are not even shallow.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.

Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god but who knows my god?

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.