Controversial Sayings

The sage is a mirror to heaven and earth, a glass to all things.

There is no such thing as a righteous war.

Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.

The nature of man is such that he is born with a fondness for profit.

Villain, I have done thy mother.

I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

I will be what I ought to be, and if I am not, I will be nothing.

Religion is one of the most pernicious creations of humanity.

The West has lost its courage, and with it, its soul.

The English are not very inventive; they are more imitative. They have not produced great artists, great painters, great musicians.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

I'm not anti-American, but I'm certainly not pro-American.

I am a Democrat, but I think the Democrats have been pretty stupid.

Twenty years after I am dead, I shall be a despot, sitting in my chair with Dapple in my hand, and wearing one of the coats I wear now.

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

I would not trade my love for all of Lydia.

Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within me, which nothing could extinguish.

Many eminent criminals appear to me to be persons superior in many respects [...] to the average judge.

I am following Nature without being able to grasp her...

It is not necessary for the public superego to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.