“To have an independant mind, to think for oneself, not to follow fashion, not to seek honour or decoration, not to become part of the establishment”
- Marcel Schlumberge

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools”
- Ernest Hemingway

“In a sense, investment bankng, like all banking, is a confidence trick.”
- Howard Davies, former deputy governor of The Bank of England. Currently Director of the London School of Economics, BBC Radio 4, 18th September 2008

“There are people who are not sensitive to noise; but they are just the people who are not sensitive to argument, or thought, or poetry, or art…” – Schopenhauer

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
- Charles A. Beard

“An intellectual is someone who can enter a room containing a tea cosy without putting it on his head”
- Anon

“To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don’t deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!”
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Individuality is either the mark of genius or the reverse. Mediocrity finds safety in standardization.

“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
- Admiral Hyman Rickover

“… the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”
- Alex Carey

“Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.”
- Henry Steele Commager

“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
- Hermann Goering

“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence” – Robert Anton Wilson

“There are good and bad whereever you go” – E. H. Medhurst