Things don’t have to change the world to be important.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

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 be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

There’s no doubt that inequality destabilizes societies. I think the social science evidence on that front is crystal clear.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

My doorman is more important to me than any head of any company. He keeps us safe.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?

Value is what you get.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.

Sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But… it is better to be good than to be ugly.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

If you’re living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

I don’t want to get into it, but if you know someone, it doesn’t mean you agree with everything they say or they do.

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.

The most impactful dollars that Australia can spend are actually what goes to help the poorest.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.

I have always enjoyed watching my songs make people cry.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

The time is always right to do what is right.

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

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.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

A vigorous temper is not altogether an evil. Men who are easy as an old shoe are generally of little worth.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.

After it is all over, the religion of man is his most important possession.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

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.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

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.

If you really love films, and you really want to get the full impact, there’s a huge difference between watching something on a small screen with a mediocre sound system and watching it on a giant screen in a giant theater with a huge beautiful sound system. I mean, the difference is electric.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth.

Know your worth! People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.

I feel like the way I was raised was to be able to see through all the titles in this world – from religion to race.