A golden rule: to leave an incomplete image of oneself.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
Definition of courage: "Grace under pressure."
Even a little dog can piss on a big building.
Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event.
Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
For he does not wish to seem but to be just.
Heaven forbids, it is true, certain gratifications, but there are ways and means of compounding such matters.
Hug the shore; let others try the deep.
I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
I don't know what the problem is, but I'm sure it can be solved without resorting to violence.
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
I recover my property wherever I find it.
I sometimes think that God in creating man, somewhat overestimated His ability.
I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown.
If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian.
If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.
If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.
In appearance, at least, he being on all occasions glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another, and know it on both sides.
Is the Archbishop's blessing any more meaningful than the Politician's handshake? The come, they go, with bigger things than us on their minds.
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.
It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking.
It took the Church until 1832 to remove Galileo's work from its list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read at the risk of dire punishment of their immoral souls.
It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.
Life is always walking up to us and saying, "Come on in, the living's fine," and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.
Life without music would be an intolerable insult.
Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.
Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
Love is the only gold.
Many a man fails to become a thinker only because his memory is too good.
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.
Men in great place are thrice servants, – servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.
My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.
My motto is simple. Give war a chance.
Never insult anyone by accident.
Never mind what I told you – you do as I tell you.
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty ... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led diffcult lives and led them well.
Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh.
Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul
Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go it's one of the best.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but –" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.
The fountains of sacred rivers flow upwards.
The laws of the most kingdoms and states have been like buildings of many pieces, and patched up from time to time according to occasion, without frame or model. ... This continual heaping up of laws without digesting them maketh but a chaos and confusion, and turneth the laws many times to become but snares for the people. ... Then look into the state of your laws and justice of your land: purge out multiplicity of laws: clear the incertainty of them: repeal those that are snaring; and press the execution of those that are wholesome and necessary ...
The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.
The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so.
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
The war on drugs has nothing at all to do with drugs. It is part of an all-out war on the American people by a government interested only in control.
The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.
The youngsters of today must direct their attention not only to the matter of racial identity and racial realization through African Studies, but they must make certain they are not left behind in the scientific and technological revolution, because if they are, they will be in a hopeless state. There will be absolutely no way in the world whereby they can become an effective force. If the young Negro cannot become a part of this advancing technology, his whole revolution will have been in vain.
There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.
There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance.
Though one sits in meditation in a particular place, the Self in him can exercise its influence far away. Though still, it moves everywhere... The Self cannot be known by anyone who desists not from unrighteous ways, controls not his senses, stills not his mind, and practices not meditation.
To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
Trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers.
Victory is fair; and if the gods are growing kinder, it would be well with me.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
When I was 15-years-old, I took off my clothes and looked in the mirror. When I stared at myself naked, I realized that to be perfectly proportioned I would need twenty-inch arms to match the rest of me.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it.
You force many to relearn about you; they charge it bitterly against you. You came close to them and yet passed by: that they will never forgive. You pass over and beyond them: but the higher you ascend, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. But most of all they hate those who fly.
