Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

Every President I think I’ve ever known, except Truman, has thought they didn’t quite get done what they wanted done. And toward the end of their Administrations, they were disappointed and wished they had done some things differently.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

‚Pure experience‘ is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

Painting is concerned with all the 10 attributes of sight; which are: Darkness, Light, Solidity and Colour, Form and Position, Distance and Propinquity, Motion and Rest.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

I have wondered about time all my life.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

Every once in a while, you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You can’t do that. It’s gone, gone forever.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

That’s the shock: All cliches are true. The years really do speed by. Life really is as short as they tell you it is. And there really is a God – so do I buy that one? If all the other cliches are true… Hell, don’t pose me that one.

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Become aware of your own insufficiency.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Humanity I love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

I don’t dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it’s gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin‘ White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It’s connected to where you are today.

Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can’t really understand why it doesn’t obsess everyone – I think it does really, I’m just a little more out about it.

Time stays, we go.

I think we’ve taken the meaning of Christmas out. People don’t stop and think about Jesus or the birth of Jesus. When they think of Christmas, they think of Santa Claus and – for the children, and they think of giving gifts and out-giving the next person of spending their time looking for the right thing for somebody who has everything.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It’s like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

The Sabbath provides a wonderful opportunity to strengthen family ties.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?

The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

Sometimes I just sit still and enjoy God’s presence.

As I’m traveling around, I meet many small children. And when I look at a small and think how we’ve harmed this beautiful planet since I was that age, I feel a kind of desperation, anger, shame. I don’t know what I feel; I just don’t know what the emotion is.