For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

The upper class desire to remain so, the middle class wish to overthrow the upper class, and the lower class want a classless system.

In this game that we're playing, we can't win. Some kinds of failure are better than other kinds, that's all.

He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.

And it is a great thing to die in your own bed, though it is better still to die in your boots.

Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.

The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.