Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

My mother never made me do anything for my brothers, like serve them. I think that’s an important lesson, especially for the Latino culture, because the women are expected to be the ones that serve and cook and whatever. Not in our family. Everybody was equal.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I’d invented it, because it is very true.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

I don’t believe you could be a 39-year-old quarterback in the NFL and eat cheeseburgers every day. I want to be able to do what I love to do for a long time.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Nature does nothing in vain.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.

We reached a high point in my opinion with the passage of the civil rights legislation and Martin Luther King’s success and the crusade of others. I think we kind of breathed a sigh of relief as if we had achieved the end of racial discrimination or white supremacy.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches – he has made music sick.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

A worthy woman personifies the truly noble and worthwhile attributes of life.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

Forever is composed of nows.

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I’m a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself – all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. That’s what I see. That’s the America I know!

Better to have beasts that let themselves be killed than men who run away.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

As long as your body is healthy and under control and death is distant, try to save your soul; when death is immanent what can you do?

All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.

We want to do a lot of stuff; we’re not in great shape. We didn’t get a good night’s sleep. We’re a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup.

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

My life is my message.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

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

To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It’s commenting or observing or twisting life.

I think sometimes the best training is to rest.

Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centred and even solipsistic.