He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

No man was ever wise by chance.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

There is no wealth but life.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

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

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

Every sentence spoken by Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is the sense of France.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

France has more need of me than I have need of France.

Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‚hurry sickness.‘ Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

There is no such thing as Something for nothing.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Live to learn, and you will really learn to live.

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

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.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

Our best thoughts come from others.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

I’ve just tried to grow up in the most natural and gradual process that I possibly can and make choices I feel are right for me and my fans.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.