Thomas Jefferson

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.

In matters of style, swim with the current;In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

The business world was pretty upset by the advances in public welfare in the ’60s, in particular by Richard Nixon – it’s not too well understood, but he was the last New Deal president, and they regarded that as class treachery.

[The Americans] should accept their part of the blame. Let them say so. We talked to them all the time, we were telling them that we want Afghanistan to be an independent country, that we are leaving, we are withdrawing from that country. But at that same time, our partners were working in secret with those forces with whom they are now fighting. It’s called the historical and political boomerang. I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.

When in 2007 I spoke in Munich…I spoke about the fact that the United States is widening the jurisdiction of its laws beyond its national borders, and that this is unacceptable. And that’s exactly what’s happening now, also to our European and other partners. Why is this happening? No one wanted to listen and no one did anything to stop this from developing.

More time and at least a degree of reasonableness in the treatment of the Labour Party. Because the message that we’re putting out on austerity hasn’t fundamentally changed. There’s been an enormous barrier in getting it across, but now I think a lot of people understand what we’re saying and why we’re saying it.

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

If people don’t like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

If by ‘intellectual’ you mean people who are a special class who are in the business of imposing thoughts and forming ideas for people in power, and telling people what they should believe…they’re really more a kind of secular priesthood, whose task it is to uphold the doctrinal truths of the society. And the population SHOULD be anti-intellectual in that repect.

See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.

Right before the 2000 [U.S.] elections, about 75 percent regarded it as virtually meaningless, some game involving rich contributors, party managers, and candidates who are trained to project images that conceal issues, but might pick up some votes.

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.

My parents told me that children were taken from their families in 1941, and my mother had a child taken from her – with the goal of saving him.

The events in Crimea themselves have nothing to do with what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other regions. In my opinion, when the world becomes unipolar, or when someone tries to make it so, then this one pole has the illusion that all issues can be settled through power. And only when there is a balance of power does the desire to negotiate appears.

Advance towards socialism cannot but cause the exploiting elements to resist the advance, and the resistance of the exploiters cannot but lead to the inevitable sharpening of the class struggle.

About half of what are called US exports to Mexico are intrafirm transfers of this sort. They don’t enter the Mexican market, and there’s no meaningful sense in which they’re exports to Mexico. Still, that’s called ‘trade.’

While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the real truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors, he is a moral coward.