What is precious or refined or valuable in the human soul cannot be taught and what is common and vulgar does not need to be. All the stuff in between is what schools are for.

Contorting yourself to avoid hurting feelings leaves you in a knot and the other person as ignorant as before.

If a person stays in politics long enough he will become officious. He may barely avoid becoming a buffoon.

Showmanship, salesmanship and self-promotion are symptoms of sickness in society. So is over-alliteration.

The truth can be truth only shorn of politics and if you think you are taking a “stance” then you have allowed politics in.

Hype is the gateway drug into hell, or Communism, take your pick. Over-hype is totalitarianism itself.

 Don’t ask my opinion when you want validation. Danger, Will Robinson!

The first test a politician should face is whether he is embarrassed by the trappings of power.

The State of the Union is an abomination. It is a crass festival of puling spectacle. Anyone who tries to read the entrails of this mess is benighted almost beyond hope.

Accusing someone of “whataboutism” may be a valid criticism, but remember that it is a sword with blades on both ends.

Because you want there to be evidence doesn’t mean there actually is evidence.

Aim for competence. It is the only path to greatness.

The three greatest lies in America today:

• I don’t like sweets.
• I don’t watch a lot of television.
• I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.

Arguments are discussions that aren’t going anywhere.

The glass is both half full and half empty. However you choose to interpret it doesn’t change its reality.

The only religion worth following is one that promises hard work and pain. And some redemption at the end.

Evaporated cane juice is sugar, my friends.

If you are trying to solve a problem you won’t pick scapegoats. If you pick scapegoats, you aren’t trying to solve the problem.

A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but quoting Emerson is the last refuge of demagogues and incompetents.

We have free will and we have none. Both assertions are true and cannot be reconciled, so get over it.

Don’t tell me what to do and I won’t ignore you. He who wants to boss is a poor individual who knows very little, least of all himself.

Reality doesn’t depend on what you believe, and the “arc of history” can’t be known by those inside it.

The world is a messy place with lots of petty evil, but the vilest evil appears only when someone tries to clean it all up.

Reality has no obligation to follow anyone’s scheme. Life is not tricked by our illusions even if we are.

No man is evil in his own mind but some of us are whistling past the graveyard.

Fear the man who believes he is evil almost as much as you fear the man who believes he is good.

Self-hype is a purgatory of one’s own making.

If everything deserves a standing ovation, then why waste the energy? Sitting is more comfortable, but then your butt may be numb so what the heck. It doesn’t mean anything anyway. Many times it is simply sophistication-signaling by people who don’t understand what they just experienced.

There is sometimes a fine line between persuasion and manipulation. Find it.