"Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy...." - Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli

“A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.”

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”

“The leader should know how to enter into evil when necessity commands.”

“In respect to foresight and firmness, the people are more prudent, more stable, and have better judgement than princes.”

“Wisdom must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child-on a field-mouse instead of a human soul.”

“All my life, I never believed most things I read in history books and a lot of things I learned in school. But now I've found I don't have the right to make a judgment on someone based on something I've read. I don't have the right to judge anything. That's the lesson I've learned”

“A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.”

“What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.”

“Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it.”