Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day's receipts.

All around the Mediterranean you'll find cultures that believe men can't control themselves and shouldn't have to try.

I'm not sure a world run by women would be any better. They're human beings!

I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that inevitably will be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay.

The practice of diplomacy, I have found, is sometimes like eating soup with a fork: much activity yielding little nourishment.

It may be important to write a book that doesn't come up to what I would like to have rather than to write no book at all.