Lao Tzu once said ...

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Laozi

The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams

I am fascinated by religion. (That's a completely different thing from believing in it!) It has had such an incalculably huge effect on human affairs. What is it? What does it represent. Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it? I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing.

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day

War in Iraq

All wars are fought for money.
– Socrates

Mahatma Ghandi

"First they ingnore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

-- Mahatma Ghandi

Irrational Man : A Study in Existential Philosophy by WILLIAM BARRETT

Barrett contrast the western civilization with oriental civilization and ask the simple question: why science arose in the west and why oriental man who is no less brillant and profound then west man, always remained intuitive and mystical rather then rational and scientific. And his answer in one word is: Socraitis and his successors.

Plato on Music

First and most powerful form of education is music. He (Plato) spends all book of the Republic on music and only one paragraph on economics. Music is tremendously powerful he says because it's a first thing that puts an order or disorder into your soul before you can understand language and reason. End even when you are an adult it gets into your soul passing the guard at the gate of reason. It's like waters that can seep under castle walls no mater how strong they are and it connects you with the pattern of harmony and the whole cosmos and it make you happy by that harmony.