I don’t see myself as beautiful, because I can see a lot of flaws. People have really odd opinions. They tell me I’m skinny, as if that’s supposed to make me happy.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small.

I only see clearly what I remember.

People do dismiss ambient music, don’t they? They call it ‚easy listening,‘ as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.

The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

It’s not simply to say, ‚My colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way,‘ but the greatest dissents do become court opinions.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

The beautiful seems right by force of beauty, and the feeble wrong because of weakness.

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the U.S. government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That’s all to the good.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

Genteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly.

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don’t understand.

I trust my taste. I trust it completely and I always have done, and I’ve always thought it isn’t that different from everybody else’s.

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

I don’t really care how the Patriots are perceived, truthfully. I really don’t. I really don’t. Look, if you’re a fan of our team, you root for us, you believe in our team, and you believe in what we’re trying to accomplish. If you’re not a fan of us, you have a different opinion.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Many people find the universe confusing – it’s not.

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

People like to build their own story about my life. I don’t know if it makes them feel better, or if it makes it okay for them to not like me, but the last thing I grew up as was rich.

A fit body gives you confidence. And there’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve. But you’ll have to remember the difference between being rude and being confident.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

The one thing that ‚Via Dolorosa‘ has is no opinions. To me, curiosity is 50 times as valuable as opinion.

Honestly, I could care less about other people’s opinions about me.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

I’m not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself – then they get to say ‚See, you did it yourself.‘

No one wants advice – only corroboration.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

I’m a human being. I’ve got opinions, I’m not always right, I’m not always on time, I don’t always say things in the proper way, but my intentions are always extremely pure.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.