The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible at least on the scale it occurred.

The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark.

Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This makes you look smart.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the leader is a servant.

Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.

I told my father I wanted to play the banjo and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday and between that time and my birthday I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.

Since graduation I have measured time in 4-by-5-inch pieces of paper four days on the left and three on the right. Every social engagement interview reading flight doctor's appointment birthday and dry-cleaning reminder has been handwritten between metal loops.

A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems a better mathematician is one who can see analogies between proofs and the best mathematician can notice analogies between theories.

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves whether it's shyness insecurity anxiety whether it's a physical block and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right between fairly good and the best between mediocrity and superiority.

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between I occupy myself as best I can.

I like to have Chinese furniture in my home as a constant and painful reminder of how much has been destroyed in China. The contrast between the beauty of the past and the ugliness of the modern is nowhere sharper than in China.

There's a difference between beauty and charm. A beautiful woman is one I notice. A charming woman is one who notices me.

So as I look at transitioning to the communication platforms of the future I see that the beauty of Internet protocols is you get the separation of the layers between service and technology.

The difference between utility and utility plus beauty is the difference between telephone wires and the spider web.

Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them or to use words like beauty excellence art poetry with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have.

Beauty set up distance between other people and me. It warped their behavior.

People tend not to use this word beauty because it's not intellectual - but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect.

Beauty is not something you can count on. Usually when people say you are beautiful it is when there is a harmony between the inside and the outside.

Do you know the difference between a beautiful woman and a charming one? A beauty is a woman you notice a charmer is one who notices you.

That attitude does not exist so much today but in those days there was a very sharp distinction between basic physics and applied physics. Columbia did not deal with applied physics.

Certain kinds of speed flow intensity density of attacks density of interaction... Music that concentrates on those qualities is I think easier achieved by free improvisation between people sharing a common attitude a common language.

It is impossible to exaggerate the wide and widening gulf between the American attitude on the Iraq war and the view from our friends across the Atlantic.

The jokes are great but what really matters for a comedian is his performance his whole attitude and the laughs that he gets between the jokes rather than on top of the jokes.