I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don’t doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.

One of the most terrible feelings in the world is knowing that someone else doesn’t like you. Especially when you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve it.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

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

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

I have a deep, deep belief that if I tell you I’m going to crack you with a clean shot to the chin inside one minute of the first round and you will be unconscious, well, then that’s what will happen.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions – for the fun of it – then one day you’ll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one!

On the court, I want to try and get to the free-throw line a little more. And as a point guard, you can always get better at your decision-making and limiting your mistakes.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be.

There are other measures of self-respect for a man, than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day.

I think it speaks of all women having those few special things that make them feel feminine. And so when I was a little girl, I would associate Guerlain with that.

I’m constantly trying to find new ways to get my hair out of my face.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

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

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Whenever something went wrong when I was young – if I had a pimple or if my hair broke – my mom would say, ‚Sister mine, I’m going to make you some soup.‘ And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

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.

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that’s stripped down.

I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

My biggest error? Something that is to happen yet.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

She is a peacock in everything but beauty.