“The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts.”

An honorable man will not be bullied by a hypothesis.

There is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all.

That is the essence of a witch-hunt, that any questioning of the evidence or the procedures in itself constitutes proof of complicity.

Many studies have established the fact that there is a high correlation between vocabulary and intelligence and that the ability to increase one’s vocabulary throughout life is a sure reflection of intellectual progress.

Stoicism is the wisdom of madness and cynicism the madness of wisdom.

We see what we want to see, and observation conforms to hypothesis.

Most civilized lives are measured out with coffee spoons.

Authors are magpies, echoing each other’s words and seizing avidly on anything that glitters.

For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they do but marshal us the way that we are going.

Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues. . . .

It (the dash ) is a comfortable punctuation mark since even the most rigorous critic can seldom claim that any particular example of it is a misuse. Its overuse is its greatest danger, and the writer who can’t resist dashes may be suspected of uncoordinated thinking.

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning, and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.

A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement.

Which of these statements creates more anxiety in you: ‘There is no God’ or ‘There is no money’?

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.

It would be gross understatement to say that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not a model of clarity. It is in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction.

Without a mission statement, you may get to the top of the ladder and then realize it was leaning against the wrong building!

So, for instance, let me make this clear: You know I signed a statement. I will not raise taxes on anybody. I don’t want to raise taxes on the American people.

Trust is an illusion. A systematically flawed word. A total forgery of a statement. Trust assumes infallibility – without errors, mistakes, or fuck ups.

When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear.

The most revolutionary statement in history is love thine enemy.