How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

Life is our dictionary.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Grace is not part of consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.

When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn’t believe that we were mortal.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don’t know nothing. I mean, that’s my life lesson.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Know that any and all thoughts that you have regarding your own skills, interests, and inclinations are valid. To reinforce the validity of your thoughts, keep them private. Tell yourself that they’re between you and God.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

For me, one of the toughest things about Valentine’s Day is that it gets geared up as the day to profess your love. See, T-E-S-T – that’s a bad word that doesn’t go with L-O-V-E.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours anymore.

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

There have been so many great players that I’ve played with, that I’ve played against over the years.

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

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.

When I was a boy we didn’t wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

I’m one of them guys that tries to make everything the best of the best, so sometimes I’m out of control with it.

I, personally, think there is a really danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture.

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.

There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.