"...it is a base thing to look to others for your defense instead of depending upon yourself. That defense alone is effectual, sure, and durable which depends upon yourself and your own valor."

"Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied."

"Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it."

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."

"Is necessary to take such measures that, when they believe no longer, it may be possible to make them believe by force."

"War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel."

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

"What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?"

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

"It takes too much energy to be against something unless it's really important."

"I want to grow. I want to be better. You grow. We all grow. We're made to grow. You either evolve or you disappear."

"It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done."