“The really painful surprise is that so many people based their hopes on his words, rather than on the record of his deeds.”

Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.

No one chooses which culture to be born into or can be blamed for how that culture evolved in past centuries.

Justice at all costs’ is not justice.

It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.

Whenever someone refers to me as someone “who happens to be black,” I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.

As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill.

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.

As an entrepreneur in India put it: ‘Indians have learned from painful experience that the state does not work on behalf of the people. More often than not, it works on behalf of itself.

The purpose of education is to give the student the intellectual tools to analyze, whether verbally or numerically, and to reach conclusions based on logic and evidence.

Intellect is not wisdom.

Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.

Racism does not have a good track record. It’s been tried out for a long time and you’d think by now we’d want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.

The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.

The government is indeed an institution, but “the market” is nothing more than an option for each individual to chose among numerous existing institutions, or to fashion new arrangements suited to his own situation and taste.

Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

Glory crowns the deeds of those who expose themselves to toils and dangers.

Miracles don’t exist it’s just the good deeds that pile up, the warm smiles and love. Eventually all of it overflows and creates what appears to be a miracle.

Words that do not match deeds are unimportant.

Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.

I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.

Beware of sentimental alliances where the consciousness of good deeds is the only compensation for noble sacrifices.

Practice justice in word and deed, and do not get in the habit of acting thoughtlessly about anything.

You can tell the man who rings true from the man who rings false, not by his deeds alone, but also by his desires.