The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

There is nothing so stable as change.

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

The word ‚happy‘ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

I think that success is having fun.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

The good is the beautiful.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Sometimes I’m fascinated with how famous my work could be while I’m not so famous.

Vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.