All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

And, after all, what is a lie? ‚Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

It is natural to die as to be born.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

I’m married. My wife, Stella – a beautiful woman. She’s brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

The Tao teaches us not to intervene and interfere. The things we love we have to learn to leave alone. And the people we love we have to learn to let them be.

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

I always thought Johnny Carson was just brilliant, and I used to watch him and all the comics that would be on the show every night – and I’d dream about it being me.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

What is past is prologue.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

You see things; and you say ‚Why?‘ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‚Why not?‘

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

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

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

O wise man! Give your wealth only to the worthy and never to others. The water of the sea received by the clouds is always sweet.

My philosophy is simple: It’s a down-home, common, horse-sense approach to things.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to practice what I preached. I had always said to ‚believe in God‘ and ‚don’t give up‘ to little kids who had been diagnosed with cancer. I then thought if I can’t call on that same God and same strength that I told people about, I would be a liar and a phony.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

I think the depth, what children can handle and what they’re interested in, is much deeper than I think what people assume. I think it’s why sometimes we make things too simple for them.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.