“The extreme inequality of our ways of life, the excess of idleness among some and the excess of toil among others, the ease of stimulating and gratifying our appetites and our senses, the over-elab...”

“Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?”

“Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, w...”

“Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.”

“Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.”

“It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.”

“Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful...”

“Earthquake means destruction; dictator means destruction! In the case of earthquake, you need a strong building; in the case of dictator, you need an educated rational mind, because an irrational i...”

“egalitarianism and despotism do not exclude each other, but usually go hand in hand. To a certain degree, equality invites despotism, because in order to make all members of a society equal, and th...”

“You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep t...”

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”

“Men can be relentless," she agrees, "when they think a woman belongs to them.”

“Civilisation and the life of nations are governed by the same laws as prevail throughout nature and organic life.”

“So the next day I asked Dan how is it that Bubba can get killed, and what kind of half assed nature law would allow that. He thought about it for a while, and said, 'Well, I'll tell you, Forrest, a...”

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”