History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.

A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.

The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.

We must become masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another person determine whether we will be rude or gracious, elated or depressed is to give control of ourselves. The only true possession is self possession.

This is a lesson mankind has not yet learned. We identify, and stratify, and treat persons largely on the basis of their accidental (physical) characteristics, which have no deeper meaning.

It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.