When I see a slippery slope, my instinct is to build a terrace.

In human history, the desire for revenge and the desire for loot have often been closely associated.

Both politicians and journalists face situations which strain their honesty and humanity. My opinion is that politicians on the average stand up somewhat better than journalists.

It is said that man doesn't live by bread alone. Sometimes this is unfortunate, because people who cannot live by bread alone too often kill other people in consequence of the fights they get into.

Self-righteousness has killed more people than smoking.

Alas few socialists are either benevolent enough to work hard at these occupations out of benevolence or self-interested enough to work hard at them for money.

Inside of many liberals is a fascist struggling to get out.

There is only one thing more harmful to society than an elected official forgetting the promises he made in order to get elected; that's when he doesn't forget them.

Language is froth on the surface of thought.

My hobby of not attending meetings about recycling saves more energy than your hobby of recycling.

He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Amateur bureaucrats are often even worse than professional bureaucrats.

An extreme optimist is a man who believes that humanity will probably survive even if it doesn't take his advice.

My opinion is that he's a swindler and you're a sucker.

Once a person has killed other people on behalf of an ideology, he becomes rather devoted to it.

Asking a critic to name his favorite book is like asking a butcher to name his favorite pig.

Slogans rarely convince the unconvinced. However, they do rally the troops already on your side.

An excessive knowledge of Marxism is a sign of a misspent youth.

Soccer riots kill at most tens. Intellectuals' ideological riots sometimes kill millions.

The slogan was 'Don't trust anyone over thirty'. Sixty years later the slogan became, 'Don't trust anyone over ninety'.

A true intellectual is a man who, after reading a book and being convinced by its arguments, will shoot someone or, more likely, order someone shot.

Committing genocide on behalf of an institution generates greater loyalty to it than merely getting people fired from their jobs on its behalf.

If I owned Marseilles and Hell, I'd rent out Marseilles and live in Hell.

His ambition is to be the spider in the World Wide Web.

We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries.

Hard distinctions make bad philosophy.

Don't try to talk anyone out of concentrating his hatred on Ayn Rand or any other dead person. It can't harm the dead. Diverted to a living person, it might actually do harm.

A declining institution often experiences survival of the unfittest.

With no more than six levels of misquotation, any statement can be made to say whatever you wish.

When thugs by nature meet thugs by political conviction, 5-0 is not surprising.

The peace movement is a great force for peace. Some of the world's most quarrelsome people act out their aggressions through the peace movement.

Foolishness is rarely a matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information.

Never abandon a theory that explains something until you have a theory that explains more.

Suicidal terrorists may have short shelf lives.

When I see a slippery slope, my instinct is to build a terrace.

If a person can be said to have the wrong attitude, there is no need to pay attention to his arguments.

Of course, Third World leaders love you. By ascribing third world ills to First World sins, you absolve them of blame for their countries' failure to advance.

Honor among thieves is the ancestor of all honor.

Compassion is contempt with a human face.

Proposals to forbid golf courses have about the same motivations as proposals to forbid skate boarding, although the rationalizations are different.

The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'.

Hardly anyone has noticed that in the Northern Hemisphere people stir their drinks counterclockwise, whereas the same people stir their drinks clockwise when visiting the Southern Hemisphere.

Surfing is the most blissful experience you can have on this planet, a taste of heaven.

I think that instinct, that storytelling instinct, rescued me most of my life.

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and... if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life.

My mum says, 'Go with your first instinct,' but this can lead to impulse buying!

To be womanly is one thing, and one only; it is to be sensitive to man, to be highly endowed with the sex instinct; to be manly is to be sensitive to woman.