Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.

My mother insisted that her children read.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

I write for myself things that I’ve gone through.

When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that.

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

When I’m a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It’s somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

I don’t know if I officially proofread my father’s book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

The art is long, life is short.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

It started to weigh on me that I was responsible for the moves that had made me successful, but I wasn’t reaping the lion’s share of the profits, and that was problematic for me.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Reading isn’t good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn’t hit home runs. So I gave up reading.

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

Where there is love there is life.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I’m really not worth being called an artist at all.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it’s always just one person encountering the book, it’s not an audience, it’s one to one.

I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

We all have done something unethical.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

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

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

I’ve written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Lord keep us all from sin. Teach us how to walk circumspectly; enable us to guard our minds against error of doctrine, our hearts against wrong feelings, and our lives against evil actions.