All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating.

We accept too damned many things on the explanations of people who could have good reasons for lying.

Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him once long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.

the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead

Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.