Stephen Vizinczey
Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.Collection: Learning
Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man's universe is the earth?Collection: Alone
When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.Collection: Eye
All great power has to do to destroy itself is persist in trying to do the impossible.Collection: Trying
Like all wage slaves, he had two crosses to bear: the people he worked for and the people he worked withCollection: Two
As a rule, the most dangerous ideas are not the ones that divide people but those on which they agree.Collection: Work
The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.Collection: Inspirational
We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.Collection: People
Powerful men in particular suffer from the delusion that human beings have no memories. I would go so far as to say that the distinguishing trait of powerful men is the psychotic certainty that people forget acts of infamy as easily as their parents birthCollection: Memories
Dictatorship is a constant lecture instructing you that your feelings, your thoughts and desires are of no account, that you are a nobody and must live as you are told by other people who desire and think for youCollection: Thinking
To state a lie firmly, categorically and with great authority, undeterred by the fact that all concerned know it to be a lie, is one of the principal activities defined by the term practising law.Collection: Lying
Thou shalt not let a day pass without rereading something great.Collection: Greatness
Whenever you hear the word "inevitable", watch out! An enemy of humanity has identified himself.Collection: Creative
Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.Collection: Book
Art experts are unfailingly opposed to Art for the simple reason that they are interested in Art - but Art is not interested in Art. Art is interested in life.Collection: Art
The war against Vietnam is only the ghastliest manifestation of what I'd call imperial provincialism, which afflicts America's whole culture-aware only of its own history, insensible to everything which isn't part of the local atmosphere.Collection: War
Great writers are not those who tell us we shouldn’t play with fire, but those who make our fingers burn.Collection: Fire
Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.Collection: Consistency
To be great is to assume great concerns.Collection: Assuming
You tell me your favorite novelists and I'll tell you whom you vote for, or whether you vote at all.Collection: Novelists
Consistency is a virtue for trains.Collection: Consistency
Perhaps in a book review it is not out of place to note that the safety of the state depends on cultivating the imagination.Collection: Book
The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.Collection: Real