The personal qualities necessary for attaining office are practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself. The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to get elected, and nothing else. A test that you can only pass by cheating can't possibly select honest people.

Sane, normal people don't need power trips. So the lunatics end up in charge of everything.

Success is like a fart - only your own smells nice.

The fact that some religious fanatics might support a theory doesn't invalidate it, anymore than the concurrence of UFO abduction cults invalidates the notion of extra-terrestrial life.

Scientists are the easiest to fool. ... They think in straight, predictable, directable, and therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors-they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident.

Kids don't have ruts yet that adults have carved into their minds. They're born logical. Crooked thinking has to be taught.

On Earth they've forgotten how to make everything except money. But what good is it, if there's nothing worthwhile left to buy?