Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition.

The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.

[My father] loved me tenderly and shyly from a distance, and later on took a naive pride in seeing my name in print.

The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.

The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes, or short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the surface of consciousness. The diver vanishes at one end of the chain and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links.

We know that virtue does not matter to history, and that crimes remain unpunished; but that every error had its consequences and venges itself unto the seventh generation.

Aggressiveness is not the main trouble with the human species, but rather an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.