If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?

Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

I’m perpetually lonely.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

We should purify our innate well of contentment – what a wonderful expression – and then external things will be in harmony with us.

I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives… inside ourselves.

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

The good part about youngsters is that they are so fearless. You want to be like them.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.

I’m fat, but I’m thin inside… there’s a thin man inside every fat man.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

I think I have always had a little humor.

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.

Meditation is difficult for many people because their thoughts are always on some distant object or place. One form of meditation is to label the thought as it appears and then choose to let it go.

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

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn’t do to upset one’s own vanity.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

Some Christians feel guilty when they are doing something that isn’t ‚spiritual.‘ Somehow or another, they feel the need to hurry through the grocery store, dash through the house cleaning, and rush through all the daily aspects of life that seem irrelevant to their faith.

I’ve always kinda been a little outcast myself, a little oddball, doin‘ my thing, my own way. And it’s been hard for me to, to be accepted, certainly in the early years of my life.

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

Maybe I should say that memory interests me a great deal, because I think we all tell stories of our lives to ourselves as well as to other people. Well, women do, anyway. Women do this a lot. And I think when men get older, they do this too, but maybe in slightly different terms.

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

Man’s enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

I want the world to see my body.

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.