Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believingas we already do.

A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations, is really an uncreative mind.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establisha dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolutionin order to establish the dictatorship.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Whohath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue.

Silenceis foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

Kind wordscan be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Anyonewho conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence,just his memory.

Truth is strengthened by observation and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainity.

Silenceis as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unshown marble of greatsculpture. The silent bear no witness against themselves.

Eyes are more accurate witness than ears

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.