Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

The truth is, I had always wanted to be a comedian, but I really didn’t have that kind of personality, and it’s a terrifying thing to say.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

Nature is not human hearted.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

No man was ever great by imitation.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

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

I have finally decided to write my book on the spiritual life. I mean to put down as simply as possible the sort of ascetical or mystical teaching that I have been living and preaching so long. I call it ‚Le Milieu Divin,‘ but I am being careful to include nothing esoteric and the minimum of explicit philosophy.

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Man’s true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Science is but an image of the truth.

There are many sham diamonds in this life which pass for real, and vice versa.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.