Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome... (but not before it created an Empire that changed the world -EM).

Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. Another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible result. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy.

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes.

I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him.