Since every individual is accountable ultimately to the self, the formation of that self demands our utmost care and attention.

Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die.

The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.

Give me a lamp so I can find the day.

What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce. ... Men must want to do things of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness - they cannot work and their civilization collapses.

There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man - with human flesh.

The basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power.