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

I really don’t pay attention to the outside world when I’m incarcerated, because being in prison is like being in a different world. So I don’t pay attention to what’s going on outside of jail, because it’s all beyond my control.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

I love to watch times change!

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

I didn’t die young. So I am very lucky. There are other artists and people that didn’t survive certain things… people can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst… for many reasons, I shouldn’t be here.

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

He who lives in our mind is near though he may actually be far away; but he who is not in our heart is far though he may really be nearby.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

I’m too busy acting like I’m not Naive. I’ve seen it all, I was here first.

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

There are very few people who really appreciate my shows. People come to the show and they pay and they enjoy it, but I don’t really think most people really understand what they’ve seen.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

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.

It’s useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.

As you get older, time speeds up but life slows down.

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

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

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The little man is still a man.

A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when we’re children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether they’re scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, it’s pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

I have to be seen to be believed.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

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

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.