Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

If I am judged for my work, many myths about me as an autocrat or otherwise would become clearer. I feel false propaganda will not last, and truth will ultimately prevail.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

In every parting there is an image of death.

One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

I’m an emotional person. Sometimes I can’t help it.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

It’s not possible to stop love.

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you’ll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

Men willingly believe what they wish.

I’m a human being and I fall in love and sometimes I don’t have control of every situation.

When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise.

I just always wanted to study human behavior because every psychologist that I would talk to would tell me I was bipolar, and I know I’m not bipolar, so I had to perform a psychoanalysis on myself to find out that I have unresolved grief.

When the kids are laughing in the audience, I tear up, I’m so happy I did a nice thing.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

All emotion is involuntary when genuine.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

I left Mainz after 18 years and thought, ‚Next time, I will work with a little less of my heart.‘ I said that because we all cried for a week. The city gave us a goodbye party, and it lasted a week.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

When you think about it, three of our biggest financial decisions in life are made at times of peak emotional excitement: deciding to get married, buying a home, and having kids.

Masses are always breeding grounds of psychic epidemics.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

For most of us, relationship with another is based on dependence, either economic or psychological. This dependence creates fear, breeds in us possessiveness, results in friction, suspicion, frustration.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.

Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

I think I have the nicest fans in the world, and I quite like being surrounded by people if we’re all feeling the same emotion in the same room.

A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

When I am angry I can pray well and preach well.

The connection between psychology, mythology, and literature is as important as the connection between psychology and biology and the hard sciences.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

I love reading people. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not.

Fear is a spirit that produces a feeling.

Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

Sometimes, I’m very embarrassed.

Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.

There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

Waste brings woe, and sorrow hates despair.