We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‚Boy, those were great old days.‘ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

Sin is geographical.

Life is a song to me.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

Nothing is further than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.

Players today moan about the number of games, but when you’re young, you can’t play enough.

You know when you’re young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they’re trying to be old men and they have no idea what that’s like? It’s just that stupid the other way around.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

When people get married young, you don’t really understand the true definition of marriage.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

What’s the use of happiness? It can’t buy you money.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times.

It’s just human nature to try and figure things out. So, when we’re in the midst of a situation, we usually try to reason our way through it.

The answer I found is you stay away from the people who make fun of you, and you join these ad hoc groups who understand your craziness.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.