There's always trouble in the Middle East. I can't recall any time in my life when there hasn't been trouble there.

most of our social and educational institutions are designed to weed out or make over people ... until we produce a world where everyone is a smart, quick-witted, aggressive person living on the surface of the mind without ever looking into the depths.

Civilization is a fiction which becomes a fact only as long as everyone can believe in it. It is the cynic, rather than the rebel, who pulls down the whole flimsy structure periodically throughout history.

what you fear, you invite.

Nobody believes in ghosts, but everybody is afraid of them.

To the Latin, cynicism and middle age are synonymous. Look at our politicians - they move through their careers from left to center to right, like the hands of a clock.

Diamonds are the tears of the poor.