“History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.”

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It’s the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages.

Bankers know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard.

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.

The family is the nucleus of civilization.

Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

Truth always originates in a minority of one, and every custom begins as a broken precedent.

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

There is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.

It may be true that you can’t fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

In most states you can get a driver’s license when you’re sixteen years old, which made a lot of sense to me when I was sixteen years old but now seems insane.

We are homesick most for the places we have never known.

Most days I am in public. If I go to the store, with social media, I’m in public. It might as well be a press conference.

The number one reason most people don’t get what they want is that they don’t know what they want. Rich people are totally clear that they want wealth. They are unwavering in their desire. They are fully committed to creating wealth.

Every candidate is going to come to you and say they are the most conservative person that ever lived.

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

I once wrote a story about a writer who could not write anymore, and my friend Tennessee Williams said, ‘How could you dare write that story, it’s the most frightening work I have ever read.’ I was pretty well sunk while I was writing it.

In the 13 months I’ve been in the Senate, it has become apparent to me the single thing that Republican politicians hate and fear the most, and that is when they’re forced to tell the truth. It makes their heads explode.