If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways.

Honor is decency without vanity.

You can't help people being right for the wrong reasons...This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity; it is an expression of a lack of self-confidence.

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.

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

One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up.

The creativity and pathology of the human mind are, after all, two sides of the same medal coined in the evolutionary mint. The first is responsible for the splendour of our cathedrals, the second for the gargoyles that decorate them to remind us that the world is full of monsters, devils, and succubi.