If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

One can love a child, perhaps, more deeply than one can love another adult, but it is rash to assume that the child feels any love in return.

In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.

Vanity is but the surface.

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

They say somebody’s ‚street smart.‘ I feel like, if I got intelligence, it’s just a country smart.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

I think the American people, with some justification, think that most politicians live in la-la land.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

I lost some of my friends because I got so famous, people who just assumed that I would be different now. I felt like everyone hated me. That is the most unhappy time of my life.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

If my mother knew I did this for a living, she’d kill me. She thinks I’m selling dope.

The outside perception and inside perception of Microsoft are so different. The view of Microsoft inside Microsoft is always kind of an underdog thing.

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

I was walking down the street wearing glasses when the prescription ran out.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

Experts often possess more data than judgment.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

We misjudge risk if we feel we have some control over it, even if it’s an illusory sense of control.

To the women and children, T stands for tender. To the bad guys and thugs, it stands for tough.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

People wonder aloud about whether I am an okay mother. That is obviously painful because it’s so important to me. It’s hard to hear that people think I’m not a capable mother and a good person, that they just think I’m nuts.

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.

There are very few people who really appreciate my shows. People come to the show and they pay and they enjoy it, but I don’t really think most people really understand what they’ve seen.

I’m not the judge. You know, God didn’t tell me to go around judging everybody.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

He who lives in our mind is near though he may actually be far away; but he who is not in our heart is far though he may really be nearby.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the U.S. government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That’s all to the good.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

See things from the boy’s point of view.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I’m a realist.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

I wouldn’t put myself forward to do a film like ‚Changeling‘ if I thought I couldn’t pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.