"It seems to me that everyone on this planet whom I know or have worked with is suffering from self-hatred and guilt to one degree or another. The more self-hatred and guilt we have, the less our lives work. The less self-hatred and guilt we have, the better our lives work, on all levels."

“Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature - but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.”

Source : Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Wolfgang Schirmacher (1997). “German socialist philosophy”, Continuum Intl Pub Group

“People don't know the consolations of being unsuccessful ... If I had been successful I should have had no peace or time.”

“Every significant artist is a metaphysician, a propounder of beauty-truths and form-theories.”

“The flat tax I got on my first meeting with Margaret Thatcher, who I admired very much and who was a great admirer of Milton Friedman. I met her first when I had been prime minister I think for some months and so on, and when I told her what I am planning to do, she looked at me with these big eyes and said "you are one brave young man." And then a little bit introduced me on the realities of the Western world on which I was not very well informed. But I didn't stop.”

Source : Interview with Stephen J. Dubner at "'Freakonomics Radio" podcast, March 24, 2010.

“It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.”

“I feel like I've got the skills to be at the top, I feel like I've got the mind-state, so basically what I'm saying is there's people all around me, there's artists all around me that are in my zone, but I still feel alone. I feel like I can't relate to them as much as I can related to maybe somebody that was a little bit higher up.”

“The atoms become like a moth, seeking out the region of higher laser intensity.”

Source : "Lasers Slow Atom for Scrutiny". The New York Times, July 13, 1986.

“That's the way girls are isn't it? They swear eternal friendship, and then as soon as a man's in the case it's all forgotten.”