“For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.”

We see through others only when we see through ourselves.

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.

One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.

It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.

You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.

To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement, is the very story of great human ideals, struggling to survive in the face of great odds and difficulties.

One of the regrettable things in my life is that my dad was not around to see my stardom, to see me wrestle or to see what I achieved by the dream I had at an early age, influenced by where he would like to go.

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.

My dream was maybe someday, one night I can be a guest on a talk show, and then I will have achieved everything I want.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

I’m not in the Lifetime Achievement area yet-I’m still battling it out in the trenches.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.