“If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist.”
“To insult someone we call him ‘bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, ‘human’ might be the greater insult.”
“The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.”
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
“Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.”
“When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.”
“People think of education as something that they can finish.”
“And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.”
“The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.”
“While he lives, he must think; while he thinks, he must dream.”
“Creationists make it sound as though a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”
“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”
“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.”
“Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.”
“It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”
“Naturally, there’s got to be a limit for I don’t expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.”
“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
“The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying.”
“To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.”
“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.”
“Man’s greatest asset is the unsettled mind.”
“All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else.”
“Saying something is ‘too bad’ is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your business and not be interested anymore. It’s a lot worse than ‘too bad.’ It’s against everything decent and natural.”
“I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.”
“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.”
“In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.”
“No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”
“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
“There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power.”
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
“Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise-even in their own field.”
“There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.”
