Albert Einstein The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. +
John Maynard Keynes There is a danger of expecting the results of the future to be predicted from the past. +
Søren Kierkegaard People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. +
 Viktor E. Frankl When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. +
Friedrich Nietzsche The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. +
John Stuart Mill The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. +
Dwight D. Eisenhower Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well. +
Fyodor Dostoyevsky how easily the heart accustoms itself to comforts, and how difficult it is to tear one’s self away from luxuries which have become habitual and, little by little, indispensable. +
Benjamin Franklin Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. +
Marcus Aurelius Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. +
Blaise Pascal In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would enslave them; for each self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust +
Plato Can I by justice or by crooked ways of deceit ascend a loftier tower which may he a fortress to me all my days? For what men say is that, if I am really just and am not also thought just profit there is none, but the pain and loss on the other hand are unmistakable. But if, though unjust, I acquire the reputation of justice, a heavenly life is promised to me. Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Many undoubtedly owe their good fortune to the circumstance that they possess a pleasing smile with which they win hearts. Yet these hearts would do better to beware and to learn from Hamlet's tables that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. +
Samuel Taylor Coleridge If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself. +
Claude Bernard When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted. +
Abraham Lincoln I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down. +
Adam Smith The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice. +
Friedrich A. Hayek All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. +
Aristotle It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is? +
Kurt Vonnegut Usually when people talk about the trickle-down theory, it has to do with economics. The richer people at the top of a society become, supposedly, the more wealth there is to trickle down to the people below. It never really works out that way, of course, because if there are 2 things people at the top can't stand, they have to be leakage and overflow. +
Ronald Reagan Any system that penalizes success and accomplishment is wrong. Any system that discourages work, discourages productivity, discourages economic progress, is wrong. If, on the other hand, you reduce tax rates and allow people to spend or save more of what they earn, they'll be more industrious; they'll have more incentive to work hard, and money they earn will add fuel to the great economic machine that energizes our national progress. The result: more prosperity for all and more revenue for government. A few economists call this principle supply-side economics. I just call it common sense. +
Plato The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. +
John Locke In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity +
Friedrich A. Hayek It should be noted, moreover, that monopoly is frequently the product of factors other than the lower costs of greater size. It is attained through collusive agreement and promoted by public policies. When these agreements are invalidated and when these policies are reversed, competitive conditions can be restored. +
Napoleon Bonaparte The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains. +
John Maynard Keynes When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir? +
Friedrich A. Hayek It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it. +
Aldous Huxley The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats. +
Edmund Burke But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths. +
Adam Smith All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. +
René Descartes Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. +
Arthur Schopenhauer We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor. +
Plato False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. +
Sun Tzu Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win. +
Seneca In the meantime, cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, not to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false. +
Socrates There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. +
Cicero Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty. +
Seneca Those who forget the past, ignore the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and filled with anxiety: when they come to face death, the wretches understand too late that for such a long time they have busied themselves in doing nothing. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe It is much easier to recognise error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to every one. +
Homer If you serve too many masters, you'll soon suffer. +
Henry Kissinger Because information is so accessible and communication instantaneous, there is a diminution of focus on its significance, or even on the definition of what is significant. This dynamic may encourage policymakers to wait for an issue to arise rather than anticipate it, and to regard moments of decision as a series of isolated events rather than part of a historical continuum. When this happens, manipulation of information replaces reflection as the principal policy tool. +
Marshall McLuhan A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. +
Arthur Conan Doyle When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. +
John Pilger The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Spanish proverb: honor and money are not to be found in the same purse. +
Arthur Schopenhauer The middle ages showed us the results of thinking without experimentation, our present century shows us what experimentation without thinking leads to. +
Bias of Priene All men are wicked +
Arthur Schopenhauer The power of religious dogma, when inculcated early, is such as to stifle conscience, compassion, and finally every feeling of humanity. +