If human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Human nature is not totally fixed, but on any realistic scale, evolutionary processes are much too slow to affect it.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

I am in my own head most of the time.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

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.

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.

Here’s something that’s contrary to popular belief: I actually don’t like thinking. I think people think I like to think a lot. And I don’t. I do not like to think at all.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

The Army will take its lessons learned. They’re excellent at looking into themselves and reflecting on what did we do right, what did we do wrong.

Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness.

I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‚Oh my God, what a blessing.‘ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

I’m not good at talking about myself.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

My father wasn’t around when I was a kid, and I used to always say, ‚Why me? Why don’t I have a father? Why isn’t he around? Why did he leave my mother?‘ But as I got older I looked deeper and thought, ‚I don’t know what my father was going through, but if he was around all the time, would I be who I am today?‘

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

I’m still living at least five parallel lives, honestly! I wonder about it. I have no idea how that happens.

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

O, had I but followed the arts!

I kinda live where I find myself.

If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn’t give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

We all have done something unethical.

Have you ever thought how humiliating and distressing it was to be placed upon a sphere? For friendship it is a boon never to be able to be further apart than the antipodes. But suppose that you are leaving together to go on and on; it is impossible. To go beyond a certain point is to return to where you began.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

Man consists of two parts, his mind and his body, only the body has more fun.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.