“General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.”

People are too durable, that’s their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.

Fearful is the seductive power of goodness.

Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be simpler, If the government simply dissolved the people And elected another?

Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!

All the gang of those who rule us Hope our quarrels never stop Helping them to split and fool us So they can remain on top.

Who built the seven gates of Thebes? In the books are listed the names of kings. Did the kings heave up the building blocks?

When the wound/ No longer hurts/ The scar does.

Pleasures First look from morning’s window The rediscovered book Fascinated faces Snow, the change of the seasons

Each of us is the strongest one in his or her own skin. Characteristics should take off their hats to one another, instead of spitting in each other’s faces.

Bank robbery is an initiative of amateurs. True professionals establish a bank.

Don’t tell me peace has broken out.

When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!” When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

As regards obstacles, the shortest distance between two points can be a curve.

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.

Some people displease with merit, and others’ very faults and defects are pleasing.

The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.

All authors to their own defects are blind.

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.

Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.