“Gold and silver from the dead turn often into lead.”

Dictators never invent their own opportunities.

Vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.

Truth is a tendency.

Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.

I look for what needs to be done. After all, that’s how the universe designs itself.

Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes.

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.

The most important thing about Spaceship Earth – an instruction book didn’t come with it.

People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things.

Here is God’s purpose – for God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper.

I’m not a genius. I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.

By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties.

Rashness is the faithful, but unhappy parent of misfortune.

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.

We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.

Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.

I don’t fit into the mold of the NBA man, and I think I’ve been punished financially for it.

This life is like a swimming pool. You dive into the water, but you can’t see how deep it is.

My wife’s trying to get me into yoga, and it’s gonna take me a while, but eventually I’m gonna have to.

Don’t let anyone turn you into a slave.

Good writing … involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.

There’s more impact if you burn somebody with your eyes, look straight into him and let him know with a look.

I could be anything I wanted because I was an American. And I hope that that’s really what’s propelled me into public service.