"For example, in many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army."

"History is a branch of literature, not a field of science."

"Restore the Belle Époque!"

"If you have a rule that says the state cannot be taken over by a church, […] the obvious mutation to circumvent this defense is for the church to find some plausible way of denying that it's a church."

"The relative peace of the last sixty years has been achieved only at the price of creating a university system which is an established church in all but name, and which suppresses any thought it finds even remotely disturbing."

""The main problem in human affairs is violence. The goal [of formalism] is to design a way for humans to interact, on a planet of remarkably limited size, without violence." - A Formalist Manifesto, (April 23 2007)"

"[T]he moderate ideas of one generation are the extremist ideas of its parents, and the whole system shifts gradually over time."

"[T]he ruling caste are the people who say "we" when they mean "the government". The ruled castes always say "they"."

"The most powerful people in the West today, measured strictly by their ability to influence the real world, are journalists and professors."

""Moderation is not an ideology." - A Formalist Manifesto, (April 23 2007)"

""Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims. Similarly, not all conservatives are cretins, but most cretins are conservatives." - A Formalist Manifesto, (April 23 2007)"

"When you create a category called "religion" which lumps together all the delusional traditions that people who are not like you have inherited unquestioned from their intellectual ancestors, you are making it harder, not easier, to question your own assumptions."

""Formalists attribute the success of Europe, Japan and the US after World War II not to democracy, but its absence. While retaining the symbolic structures of democracy . . . the postwar Western system has assigned almost all actual decision-making power to its civil servants and judges, who are 'apolitical' and 'nonpartisan,' ie, nondemocratic . . . In other words, 'democracy' appears to work because it is not in fact democracy, but a mediocre implementation of formalism." - A Formalist Manifesto, (April 23 2007)"

"Simplicity is the cure for violence. For example, if we postulate an imaginary oracle that could predict the outcome of any battle, we could eliminate war. The predicted loser would have no incentive but to concede to the demands of the predicted winner."

"Democracy is to power as a lottery is to money. It is a social mechanism that allows a large number of hominids to feel as if their individual views affect the world, even when the chance of such an effect is negligible."

"[I]f you actually want to abolish politics, you have to deal with the existing power structure rather than the ideal form it pretends to be."

"Hominids crave power, and they rationalize it as responsibility. No one ever achieved power by promising to enslave his followers. It is always about improving the world, at least from the perspective of prospective supporters. And it is almost always sincere. Insincere leaders are very rare, because hominids are very good at detecting insincerity. It is much easier to delude others if at the same time you delude yourself."

"[P]ower in a democracy is held by those who manage public opinion."

"Journalism […] looks like an unfree market because it is tied so closely to the unfree market of higher education."

"[I]n a free society, there is no such thing as official truth."

"Unless you are one hundred and seven years old and a veteran of the Austrian Landwehr, you probably associate democracy with peace, freedom, progress, and prosperity. Since I associate democracy with war, tyranny, destruction and poverty, we certainly have something to talk about."

"[T]he law itself is arbitrary—a product of history, just like all other distributions of property. We support it because it's stable, and we like stability."

"Tyranny […] is essentially informal and unstable. At least in the modern era, they tend to evolve into juntas, which tend to evolve into oligarchies, which tend to evolve into democracies. […] With each of these steps, legitimacy and internal security increase, and the state becomes stronger and harder to overthrow. Unless Gaza is your idea of fun, a strong and secure state is a good thing."

"[L]eftism is Protestantism and Protestantism is leftism."

"Perhaps the principal error of modern libertarians is their failure to distinguish between weak government and small government. My ideal government is extremely small, extremely efficient, and extremely strong—its authority cannot be challenged. It does not repress its citizens not because it is physically incapable of repression, but because repression is, far from being in its interests, directly opposed to them."

"[T]he problem with genius is not promoting it, but suppressing it. It takes a very large and intricate system to perform the latter task, but it works pretty well as you can see."

"I love this idea of human-machine partnerships because in my mind it’s always been very clear. It’s not about humans or machines, it’s about humans and machines."

"We have a long history here of integrating the technologies closer together. This is what customers have been asking us to do. It is what we are doing. It is working extremely well. There is much, much more to come here."

"I do think a founder has special permission to make sweeping changes across an organization."

"Every technology creates good and bad. You can sit here and say, "AI is really bad, we shouldn't have AI" - that's nonsense. We have to figure out how to use it in a responsible way, that's our job."

"What would I do [with Apple]? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

"Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people … or find a different room.."

"You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream."

"When thoroughly reliable people encounter ghosts, their stories are difficult to explain away."

"A good yarn, an offbeat tale, a bloodcurdling ghost story -- they need no explanation or excuse for the telling!"

"As time has shifted, The Times and all the other media outlets recognize how important Wikipedia is. It's not the same hurdle anymore. I don't have to sort of say: 'Wow look at this strange thing going on, can I write some weird story about it?' Instead it's like: 'This is hugely important, and of course, write, we want to know every change.'"

"Once the butt of jokes for being the site where visitors could find anything, true or not, Wikipedia in recent years has become a more trusted source of information — certainly for settling bar bets, but even for weighty topics like Ebola."

"Playing the government off newspapers, and newspapers against each other, still does not compare with the power of the World Wide Web."

"America's got a much stronger tradition of free speech and freedom of the press. In Europe, it's much more nuanced and they put a lot of meaning on the rights of your reputation."

"Never before has the boundary between geek culture and mainstream culture been so porous."

"If someone today had the Pentagon Papers, or the modern equivalent, would he still go to the press, as Daniel Ellsberg did nearly 40 years ago, and wait for the documents to be analyzed and published? Or would that person simply post them online immediately?"

"An engineering degree is also no longer a requisite to using technology, as seemingly anyone today can install a printer or upload a video. Similarly, another signifier of nerd status — knowing obscure facts about favorite subjects — has also lost its currency."

"Before Wikileaks, or even the Internet, there were just plain leaks."

"Internet companies and nonprofits like Wikipedia have been forced to choose between cooperating with the Chinese government and losing access to the growing online audience there."

"From gadgets to social networks to video games, the decision not to embrace the newest technology is a choice to be out of the mainstream."

"Governments are trying to wrestle, how do you censor without being so heavy-handed that you make people really, you know, can't live their lives."

"Unlike in the United States, where freedom of expression is a fundamental right that supersedes other interests, Europe views an individual’s privacy and freedom of expression as almost equal rights."

"As a fresh wave of Ebola fear grips the American public, the Internet is rife with conspiracy theories, supposed miracle cures and Twitter posts of dread. But amid the fear mongering are several influential sites that are sticking to the facts about Ebola. Millions have come to rely on these sites, including those run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and Wikipedia."