“I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself.”

Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become.

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.

Demagoguery and populism are rampant. We are the illegitimate children, the bastards of communism. It shaped our mentality.

There were free elections in Bulgaria, where the opposition has just won.

I believe that a man can only be useful to his country when he can look at it clearly.

Both men have an authoritarian idea of government; democracy is merely a façade.

I think it’s always dangerous to make political arguments in a religiously ideological way. And it’s very dangerous to treat as traitors to the American nation those who think differently.

The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.

Even though we are not sure of the links, Iraq was one of the countries that did not lower its flags in mourning on 9/11.

After the French Revolution, it was not the treason of the king that was in question; it was the existence of the king. You have to be very careful when you judge and execute somebody for being a symbol.

We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing.

France can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything.

They want a gradual coup. If Orbán stayed in power in Hungary or if Kaczynski were to win an election in our country, it would be dangerous.

I think you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is also an enemy of Saddam Hussein.

This is why we will never again say that Chamberlain is no better than Hitler, Roosevelt no better than Stalin, and Nixon no better than Mao Zedong, even if we do condemn Roosevelt for Yalta, Chamberlain for Munich, and Nixon for Watergate.

Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.

I’m not against extracting a modest amount of wildlife out of the ocean for human consumption, but I am really concerned about the large-scale industrial fishing that engages in destructive practices like trawling and longlining.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

You’re going against the government of the United States. You don’t beat a federal court, a federal judge, and the FBI – there’s no way.

We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can’t remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.

Watch! When the wind blows my banner against the bulwark, you shall take it.

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God’s will.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.