If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy’s will are not allowed that luxury.

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

O Day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

I don’t read books much.

In order to fulfill the aspirations of masses, we have to sharpen the tool called the government machinery: we have to make it keen, more dynamic, and it is in this direction that we are working.

Each day brings opportunity for decisions for eternity.

If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That’s what I’ve done.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

You’re unlikely to discover something new without a lot of practice on old stuff, but further, you should get a heck of a lot of fun out of working out funny relations and interesting things.

So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

You don’t read in your own field. You read in that field when you’re young, so that you can learn.

Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

I feel matured in a way that I’m happy about. I’m at this other stage in my life – and it’s not a bad thing at all.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

I’m afraid to fail again.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

Character is power.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

Experience is the teacher of all things.

You always admire what you really don’t understand.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.